Here's a truly novel sports film: It actually has a script, decent acting, sympathetic characters. And it's fun.

But even though, most of the time, you know exactly what will happen next -- you don't much mind. Nor do the many plot holes and improbabilities -- undermine its silly, raucous spirit.

Predictable to its very core, and in a funny way the predictability is part of the fun. The movie is in on the joke of its own recycling.

Director Jesse Vaughan keeps the ball in play through the aw-shucks lessons in humility and generosity, but the teamwork is shoddy, the plays lack surprise and, finally, Juwanna Mann misses more than it hits.

Comic Tommy Davidson, in particular, is hilarious as gangsta rapper Puff Smokey Smoke, who falls for Juwanna and then, in a twist lifted directly from the queen of all drag farces, 1959's "Some Like It Hot," decides he still loves her after she's exposed as Jamal. After all, nobody's perfect.

This isn't the worst movie Warner Bros. has brought out this summer (Scooby-Doo, boo on you), but for it to work, you have to accept the irredeemable stupidity of almost every character. Time better spent: a Shaquille O'Neal film festival on video.

The idea of transposing the story to the macho, greedy world of big-time sports is promising, but director Jesse Vaughan delivers only flat dialogue and predictable situations.

Excruciatingly flat comedy.

It is Kevin Pollak who steals what there is of a show as Jamal's passive-aggressive, pressure-cooked agent. His comedic timing, particularly given the thinness of the script, is the only genuinely impressive slam dunk this movie has to offer.

"Tootsie" meets "Hoop Dreams" in Juwanna Mann, and they don't get along. This basketball comedy turns out to be a total drag -- in both senses.

It's tempting to call traveling on Juwanna Mann, except it never goes anywhere. This film fouls out.

Bottom line: Juwanna Mann is a drag - in every sense of the word.

It's all so insincere, you can almost imagine the filmmakers rubbing their hands together at the prospect of ripping off the public.

As anyone who has peered in on the actual WNBA for five minutes knows, professional women basketball players are as tough as men. That the film treats this as a joke isn't funny -- it's the height of lame condescension.