Kevin Garnett is set to portray himself in Adam Sandler's new film "Uncut Gems." However, it wasn't always KG that directors Benny and Josh Safdie saw as one of the stars of the new flick.

The Safdies joined The Ringer's "NBA Desktop" show earlier this week and revealed that Kobe Bryant and Joel Embiid were heavily considered for the role that eventually went to Garnett. Embiid was even the direction that the brother duo was slated to go in until production was going to run into the NBA season, which took the Philadelphia 76ers star out of the running.

"Joel made sense for the themes of the movie — it's about this Ethiopian opal that gets smuggled into the city, and this African player was going to basically reclaim it, and it was going to empower him," Josh Safdie said.

Embiid's manager, Jenny Sacks, actually ended up having a small role in the film as Garnett's manager.

Bryant was heavily considered for the role, but ended up expressing his passion for directing.

"Originally, the movie was Am'are (Stoudemire)," Benny Sadfie said. "It was 10 years, we spent working on this thing. Then we rewrote it briefly to maybe do a Kobe thing. But the game had to center around northeast games and coming to the city. Then our agents said 'Kobe wants to act,' then after a week and a half of slaving over the script, 'he wants to direct, nevermind.' I just rewrote the whole movie to try and fit Kobe's persona." 

It certainly would've been extremely interesting to see Embiid or Bryant get to try out their acting chops in a film like this where basketball was a major storyline. Considering the type of personality that Embiid has, it won't be a huge surprise if he takes on the acting path at some point in the near future.