Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scouts relationship potential on 'The Bachelorette'

Though Kareem Abdul-Jabbar retired from the NBA after the 1988-89 season, the Los Angeles Lakers legend has continued to grace television screens - most recently in a guest appearance on ABC's "The Bachelorette."

In one scene from Monday night's episode, the six-time champ counsels Rachel, the titular bachelorette, by helping her scout the character of her would-be suitors "by how they interacted on the basketball court," Abdul-Jabbar wrote in a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter.

"First, I ran them through some fundamentals: lay-ups, jump shots, dribbling. This wasn’t to assess their playing ability because it would be unfair to judge a person's character based on how well they played a sport. It was more to see how quickly they adapted to the drills, how enthusiastic they were to learn, how good-natured they were about the challenge," explained Abdul-Jabbar.

It's a major reversal of opinion from the Hall-of-Fame center. In an January column for The Hollywood Reporter, Abdul-Jabbar pointed out the show's "lack of intellectual and appearance diversity" as problematic. The decision to cast an African-American woman as the focal point of the current season seems to have answered some of Abdul-Jabbar's concerns about representation on the prime-time juggernaut.

"The Bachelorotte" isn't Abdul-Jabbar's first foray into the strange world of reality TV competitions. The 7-foot-2 senior citizen came in fifth place in the celebrity high-diving show "Splash" in 2013, which would be completely unbelievable if not for video footage.