The connection between the NBA and hip hop is not anything new, but the Associations embracing of the relationship has certainly reached new heights. With All-Star Weekend going down in Los Angeles this past weekend, the marriage between basketball and hip hop was too much too ignore.
Let’s take a run down: New ad campaign featuring Cee-Lo’s “I’ll Be Around.” Yes, Jay-Z was in the crowd all weekend, lots of celebrities were, nothing new right? Did anyone else notice that they cut to Jay-Z after damn near every play? Stern is watching yo. Every time they cut to commercial on Saturday night, they played a random Dr. Dre instrumental. Outkast opened the All-Star game (a year too late mind you, why didn’t they have them in ATL? And don’t say the Grammy win, cause it was solidified long before then).
Oh yeah, and AI’s gangsta. Aside from that, it was another good game and here some of my random thoughts from the weekend: Bron & Melo look like they’ve been playing together for 20 years, and Bron’s only 19…and how high can that man jump? I mean damn, McGrady and Carter look like they jump that high, LeBron doesn’t look like he is that explosive but he manages to get his head over the rim on every dunk…could’ve used him in the dunk contest for real. There were some nice dunks but it was pretty anti-climatic. J-Rich has absolutely no style but he does some of the most mind-blowingly difficult dunks I’ve ever seen…Kyle Korver has maybe the nicest release I’ve ever seen, his last rack in the first round brought a tear to my eye…Peja is still the man though…T-Mac should be banned for embarrassing everyone with dunks like that, and Kobe should be banned (for real) for doing a lay up on a breakaway in his hometown…AI is the fastest human on the planet…was I the only one who wanted to see Garnett, Nowitzki, Duncan, Shaq and Yao on the floor at the same time???
