I can see Lamar Odom right now: face down, his head in the pillows, with rain drops sliding down his window, slow jams playing from his iPod dock, and his old Dallas gear wrinkled up in the corner. When you’re as talented as Odom and you end up basically being banished from basketball, something is wrong. Over the lockout this summer, he struggled with the murder of his 24-year-old cousin, and just days later was also a passenger in a vehicle that collided with a motorcycle, killing a teen pedestrian. Death and tragedy have followed Odom wherever he’s gone, like a dark curse that’ll never stop blocking the sun. Read More »

Did the Heat lose in the Finals last year because LeBron played like he was scared? Did they lose because J.J. Barea went off? Did they lose because Dirk did everything outside of morphing into Larry Bird to stop them? Dwyane Wade doesn’t believe any of that was the real reason they lost. The Heat lost because of misplaced emotion. Wade and his teammates wanted to win to spite people because so much of the public actively hated them. Public Enemy No. 1. Even Ice Cube in his heyday never felt this hated. And yet Wade told Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski on his radio show that the team was wrongly fueled by hate, and didn’t win the championship because of that. Do you buy it? Read More »

Back in high school, the warm-up mix always had to be on point. We used to argue over the songs, sometimes had trouble landing edited versions and even had one kid constantly try to sneak his own tape over to the guys running it. It was a never-ending argument. I still remember coming out my senior year to T.I.‘s “Bring Em Out” which would seem appropriate, except that I never liked that song. It didn’t get me hyped at all (if we were gonna have T.I., I argued, it better be “What You Know”). Read More »

Ice Cube will tell anyone he can hoop. But if you shoot an airball from the free throw line, I can’t take you serious (even if he did hit his hat). Still, here’s a 42nd birthday shout out to one of the best MCs ever, Ice Cube. Now get back to filming terrible commercials.

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Is 2Pac overrated?

Before the Hip-Hop Police break into my condo and take my West Coast pass, let me say clarify that I’m only asking this question in the “devil’s advocate” tradition.

During the LL Cool J argument the other day, naturally a lot of people named 2Pac as their G.O.A.T. pick, or at least had him in their top three. Read More »

Where does LL Cool J rank among the greatest rappers of all-time?

Imagine what goes through the mind of a 1980′s hip-hop head should they intake a couple of hours of pop culture on a random weeknight.

You’ve got Ice-T playing a cop on TV. Ice Cube is writing sitcoms and getting the Tyler Perry treatment from a very corny network. Read More »

Check out the web-exclusive extended version of skate legend Paul Rodriguez‘s new commercial from Nike SB. Inspired by Ice Cube’s 1993 hip-hop classic “It Was A Good Day,” the spot shows Paul’s version of what a perfect, sun-drenched day on the board would look like in LA.

Even after a breakout debut season at Pepperdine, most people don’t know about 6-3 Keion Bell. But with 11 clips on YouTube that include a dunk over a 7-footer and a poster on DeMar Derozan, he’ll soon become a household name. This summer Keion and his 41-inch vertical found his way to the Kobe Basketball Academy where he won the Camp Slam Dunk Contest judged by Kobe, Ice Cube and Josh Powell.