Coffee Black's shoes change in the final game. At the beginning, he wears orange Adidas shoes with blue stripes. In the final seconds, he wears orange Puma shoes.
During the "jive turkey" incident, Bobby Dee lays Lou Redwood's gun on the poker table. As the camera cuts to show Lou laughing, the gun is clearly seen on the table in front of Lou even though you can hear the off screen thump of Dee laying it on the table. As the camera cuts back, Cornelius Banks has the gun in his hand.
During the first game Jackie Moon introduces Yakadis as being "from a strange country called Lithuania." From the 1940s Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union and wasn't an independent country until 1990.
Henry Ford had nothing to do with Flint, Michigan. Flint is the birthplace of General Motors, founded as the Buick Motor Company in 1903, by William C. Durant and Joshia D. Dort, co-owners of the Flint-based Durant-Dort Carriage Company. Durant brought engine builder David Buick to Flint from Detroit. Buick was a huge success, and Durant used it as the basis for his "General Motors" corporation in 1910. Henry Ford's auto company was founded in Detroit around 1910; its headquarters are in Dearborn, Michigan. There has never been a Ford facility within 50 miles of Flint, Michigan.
When the league standings are shown, the number of wins for all teams in the league exceed the number of losses for all teams in the league.
The San Antonio Spurs are portrayed as the best team in the league finishing in first place. During the 1975-76 ABA Season when the movie took place, the Spurs finished third in the standings. When the regular season ended that year, the best record in the league belonged to the Denver Nuggets.
The Anaheim Amigos jerseys are incorrect. They are showed playing in red jerseys with a black script "Anaheim." Their jerseys had a block "Amigos" on the front.
At the start of the movie, during the starting lineup introduction, the shot clock is set at 24 seconds. The ABA used a 30-second shot clock until their last season, when they switched to the 24 second shot clock.
When fans are clamoring for souvenirs, and the 1976 calendar is being flipped through, February 4th is missing. The calendar goes from Wednesday the 3rd (incorrect for that year) to Thursday the 5th.
During a jump-ball sequence, a "Spalding" logo appears on the ball. Rawlings manufactured the ABA's red, white, and blue basketballs. However, Spalding currently holds the rights to the names and logos of the now-defunct ABA, and supplies basketballs to the current ABA (formerly known as ABA2000, unrelated to the original American Basketball Association).
The Tropics play the Anaheim Amigos, but the Amigos played only during the 1967-68 season, before becoming the Los Angeles Stars.
When Coffee Black dunks the ball, the rim is a "breakaway" rim. They were never used in the ABA; the NBA adopted them in the 1980s.
About 10 minutes into the film, you see an exterior scene focusing on one of the Flint Arches on Saginaw Street, with the lit sign "Flint Vehicle City". However, the arches seen were not constructed until 2003. Flint previously had Arches on Saginaw street between 1899 and 1919, when city council ordered them torn down. Since the movie took place in 1976, the arches would not have existed.
Although the movie is set in the 1970s, many people in the crowd at various games are wearing current fashions, like hipster jeans and contemporary sports jerseys. This is most noticeable when the bear escapes and everyone in the crowd rushes to exit the stadium.
During a few bear-wrestling shots, "Dewey" pulls up the stunt-double's jacket, revealing the side and back crash-pads stuck in the waist of the double's sweat pants.
When the Tropics team bus is on the road, you see a quick shot of an Interstate 55 sign, a Stuckey's sign, and mountainous terrain. I-55 connects Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans, and has almost no mountains.
Monix mentions a bar on "route 59". There is no such highway in Flint. Also Michigan residents don't refer to highways as "routes".
In the beginning, announcer Dick Pepperfield says "That little kid from the Jackson 5, he scares me too. Oh mark my words, Lou, there is something creepy about that young man." He may have been referring to Randy Jackson, the youngest (14 or 15), shortest, and only child member of The Jacksons. The Jackson 5 disbanded in 1975, and reformed as The Jacksons in 1976. Youngest sibling Randy replaced Jermaine Jackson, who left for a solo career. In 1976, Michael Jackson, the lead singer and second youngest sibling (17 or 18) was the lead singer of The Jacksons.