If the trailer for “Semi-Pro” leaves you with that odd feeling of familiarity, it’s not your fault. With all the overgrown children that Will Ferrell has brought to the big screen, at this point it can be difficult to tell them apart. He took off running as a leading man in “Anchorman,” and has since flooded the market with lovable idiots from Ricky Bobby (“Talladega Nights”) to Chazz Michael Michaels (“Blades of Glory”). He even graciously took a breather while John C. Reilly attempted his best Will Ferrell impersonation in last year’s “Walk Hard.”

Thanks to Mr. Ferrell, American moviegoers may already have reached their saturation point for sports farce (a fact that is especially unfortunate given the brilliant ribbon dancing premise that I have been sitting on for the past decade). And with producers and actors digging as far as Ping-Pong for aggressively immature sports antics (“Balls of Fury”), the opportunity to watch grown men act like children in spandex seems as easy to do at home with Netflix as with an $11 movie ticket.

But Mr. Ferrell can just about write his own checks these days, so the juvenile hits keep on coming. “Semi-Pro” barrels into theaters today, replete with fighting bears, wah-wah guitars, and 1970s-style innuendo. Despite the formulaic plot and familiar joke bits, Mr. Ferrell has managed to helm another film that gets off a few good riffs and heartfelt moments. He is helped in this endeavor by a story based in reality, and by the fact that Woody Harrelson has been cast to do most of the story’s heavy lifting.

This time, Mr. Ferrell takes to the screen in a huge Afro and tiny basketball shorts to play Jackie Moon, one-hit pop song wonder and American Basketball Association owner-coach-player. Jackie’s latest song, “Love Me Sexy,” encapsulates some of the humorous sexual hype of the era, and screenwriter Scot Armstrong’s efforts to align his story with the flashy yet doomed ABA keep the film from running too far into embarrassing hyperbole (cough: “Blades of Glory”).

It is 1976 in Flint, Mich., and Jackie’s vanity project, the Flint Tropics, is about to be eliminated on account of the league’s merger with the more popular National Basketball Association. To save his struggling team, Jackie unwittingly convinces the ABA commissioner to take the top four performing teams that season to the NBA. With some imaginative publicity stunts and the help of former NBA player Monix (Mr. Harrelson), whom Jackie thriftily traded for a washing machine, the Tropics might just have a shot at making it to the big leagues.

Jackie’s tricks to spur attendance rates and publicize his games eventually take a back burner to Monix’s travails. The aging star may have come back to Flint to play for the Tropics, but his return was inspired more by a desire to reclaim his former love, Lynn (Maura Tierney), than to win basketball games. The two make a good pair, though it’s a bit hard to pay attention with Kyle (Rob Corddry), who is either Lynn’s new boyfriend, husband, or mentally handicapped brother, around all the time. Whatever his role, Kyle’s abject admiration for Monix shifts from humorous to peculiarly disturbing pretty quickly.

Also on board for the trip is hiphop impresario Andre Benjamin, who continues his attempts at acting as Clarence “Coffee” Black, the team’s most skilled player and likely candidate for the NBA. Mr. Benjamin’s distinctive soul-infused aesthetic makes him a natural fit for the screen, but he has yet to prove that he has the dramatic skills and timing to go with it. Here, Clarence gets points for style, but otherwise fails to impress. Will Arnett has the smarminess of the ’70s newscaster down cold, Matt Walsh makes a nice addition as Father Pat the Ref, and Jackie Earle Haley’s stoner fan almost makes for a terrific cinematic non-sequitur.

“Semi-Pro” rarely breaks free of the vocabulary of rote comedy that has been well-plumbed, but it’s a formula that works, and while the film doesn’t chart any new territory, it does manage to steer clear of the cinematic opportunism that has laid waste to many other star-studded projects. Director Kent Alterman seems to have his heart in the right place, and if “Semi-Pro” manages only one feat, let it be to memorialize the small tragedy that resulted from the loss of basketball’s short shorts.

mkeane@nysun.com