A reposting from former Ohio animation studio Character Builders's detailed Space Jam feature on their website from 1997. Link at https://web.archive.org/web/19970128200303/http://www.cbuilders.com/sjgall.htm.
Gallery 
In order to arrive at the finished product you see on the screen, artists created hundreds of thousands (probably millions, actually--nobody actually counts 'em) of individual drawings and paintings. Most of them were never seen in their initial form. Some were just "stepping-stones"--for example, storyboards or animation drawings that were eventually cleaned up and colored digitally. Some were discarded when the story changed, or to make the movie shorter. Some were just plain terrible and were hidden away by their creators before anybody ever saw them. The images presented here have been annotated with production notes, inside information, and comments from the artists who drew them.
"Tomorrow is another day..."
"This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship..."
"That's all, folks!"
We were pretty excited when it turned out that we were going to be assigned the movie's final scene--it meant we'd get to animate one of the most famous closing lines of all time.
So who was given the honor? Well, through all of the scene's incarnations and revisions, at least five animators touched the scene at one moment or another, along with assistants, inbetweeners, scanners, painters, checkers, scene planners, and many others. Like any production, it got sort of crazy, and even on a scene like this, it's easy to get immersed in the task at hand--in just getting the scene done. Then, later, you look back and say, "Hey! I'm making a movie with Bugs Bunny!"
At one point, the final game was to have a decidedly different tempo and atmosphere than the one that ended up in the film. In this version, the Monstars are darker and far more menacing. These boards depict the Monstars as flashing shadows that hit the court and go berserk, giving the sense that Michael's in real danger.
Null wasn't allowed to grab his crotch in the final animation. It happened pretty fast, so the producers were afraid that people might think that it was a "hidden gag," and there would be an outcry like the one caused by the pantiless Jessica in Roger Rabbit, or the "S-E-X" written in the clouds in The Lion King . In reality, it was just an attempt by Dan to be contemporary and give the characters some "attitude."
Another scene (not one of ours) that didn't get through was one in which Lola Bunny's top rides up and reveals just a little too much--not enough to be obscene, but enough to give adolescents with laserdisc players some amusement. Sorry, Lola fans...
For a while, artists explored the possibility of depicting Swackhammer as a sort of machine-age carnival impresario. This led to a series of conceptual drawings where he appears as a Mr. Hyde-like character complete with stove-pipe hat and opera cape. These drawings are all from very early in the production--long before even Jack Palance (who was later replaced by Danny DeVito) was cast in the role.
Then there was the "Little Lord Fauntleroy" version...
The Looney Tunes characters were pretty much designed long before the movie ever entered production (although a lot of time went into the process of deciding which old designs to use), but the Monstars, Nerdlucks, and Swackhammer went through many possible incarnations, from evil corporate mogul (above), to interstellar swinger, to Godfather (below, left and right).
This design of Swackhammer on his personal flying saucer inspired story discussions in which Swackhammer becomes personally involved in the game. When he sees his team about to lose, he storms onto the court, rips the rim off of the Monstar's goal, and flies off with it, forcing Michael to execute the "ultimate sky," leaping to a truly spectacular height in order to make the dunk.
The Monstars ran the design gamut from being almost straight caricatures of their corresponding NBA players to looking like nothing even human. This Patrick Ewing Monstar has little in common with the final designs used in the movie.
This very early drawing was done in the first days of the production, in a trailer on the Universal lot, with no windows, orange carpet, and '70s rec-room panelling on the walls. Close to twenty artists and a production staff manned the trailer, which was close enough to hear the hydraulics and the screaming tourists when the Jaws shark on the Star Tours ride.
One day while he was designing Nerdlucks, Dan Root was clubbed unconscious and his body taken over by the ghost of Walt Kelly.
This is not one of Dan's favorite drawings. "This is them without individiual personalities, really. They acted more like a group. Except for the one guy, who is the guy who always touches things he shouldn't. Which isn't really much of a character."
Dan wasn't too fond of this one, either. "This was from when Jerry [Rees, one of the original animation producers] wanted the Nerdlucks to have different personalities. I just think it's really TV-looking."
These appliances in Swackhammer's office were "minion-powered," sort of like a high-tech Flintstones, only more cruel, because the the technology to use, say, electricity obviously exists. Though these designs were never used, it's possible to imagine the Nerdlucks' airship being propelled by thousands of these poor blighters somewhere in the ship's belly.
A big hunk of the Monstars' transformation sequence was cut in order to keep the picture moving briskly along, including this scene: Daffy is picked up by Zilch; we hear an offscreen CRUNCH as the rest of the gang react; and then the Monstars line up to use our hapless hero as a speed bag.
When a sequence like this is cut, it usually happens while the scene is in storyboard form, long before animation starts. It's just too expensive to animate anything you're not sure of, so the boards are drawn and redrawn, timed and retimed, until they're dead on.
Early Nerdluck designs ranged from Edward G. Robinson-like slugs (top) to amorphous little amphibians.
The little aliens were tough to peg. Their designs changed slightly even after they had been approved and models had been sent out to various merchandising manufacturers. Not enough for your kids to notice, but enough for an exhausted artist who's been cleaning up Nerdlucks for six months to pick up a toy and murmur, "Hm. Neck's too long."
In the movie, Michael's kids are watching a Roadrunner cartoon that is interrupted by Porky, who arrives to inform them that a Cartoon Character Union meeting's been called. A brand-new "mini-cartoon" was boarded before it was replaced by footage from an actual vintage short. This was one cut that nobody was too upset over. The cut saved time that was better used elsewhere in the movie; the original footage was immediately recognizable and made the interruption more startling; and, frankly, nobody ever really felt right about trying to recreate something that had been done so perfectly by Chuck Jones.
It's very likely that this "Cross-Training Daffy" drawing from Daffy's runway scene was Dan's way of working into the movie a funny drawing he'd done weeks earlier of Daffy in his underwear but didn't really have a place for at the time.
One gag that didn't make it to the screen was a moment in which Bugs and Daffy take advantage of one Monstar's natural stupidity and trick him into letting Bugs and Daffy do his hair and give him a pedicure.
The dialogue that went with it?
"Mon-n-starrs are such in-n-n-teresting people!"
Of course.
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