For a variety of reasons, basketball and music seem to have always had crossover appeal. [Pun acknowledged, but not condoned.] Be it due to the intrinsically linked cultures of the music of the streets and the game on the playgrounds – a partnership which, if I was 10 years older, I would probably find it funny to call “hip hoops” – basketball players moving into musical side projects has become so prevalent that it’s now a cliché. Just as Common thinks he can pull off a decent replication of an extremely ball-dominant undersized scoring guard during each NBA All-Star Weekend, many ballers out there think they have rhythm. There have been dozens of these instances throughout history. The following list attempts to exhaustively cover them all, ranging from those who are actually quite good, to those that would have trouble rhyming “Mercedes” with “ladies”, even if they were run down by a Mercedes full of ladies, all of whom were waving rhyming dictionaries only containing the words “Mercedes” and “ladies.” The most recent addition to this list is also its first. Fresh from an underwhelming three month turf-toe laden stretch of play featuring lashings of the first half of his surname, Carlos Boozer made the news yesterday on account of his foray into the rap game, pairing up with Twista, Mario Winans and a truly terrible beat on the following song, “Winning Streak.” Why Boozer has chosen to rap about things such as “going hard,” “crossing over” and “going baseline,” things he doesn’t actually do on the basketball court, is not clear. Maybe he should have rapped about things he actually does, such as pushing players in the back as they drive unhindered to the basket, rotating the wrong way defensively, asking the ref for a touch of the ball […]
