Hip Hop Hoop News

Derrick Rose Situation and NCAA: This week the University of Memphis was stripped of the school's 38-win season and its Final Four appearance in 2008 because former point guard Derrick's Rose allegedly had someone else take his SAT's for him after he reportedly was unable to get a satisfactory score on his ACT's in three prior attempts. Memphis also has to return the money the basketball team generated during its run in the NCAA tournament that season. Let's be clear about something up front: Rose was not named in the report. However, people around the country are filling in the blanks as he's the only player who seems to match the description in the report. If you're like me, you're probably wondering how exactly the NCAA strips a team of experiences that have already been lived. Sure they can eliminate numbers in an official record book, but it's not like anyone can erase the game's that were played from existence. That's especially true since Memphis participated in the NCAA championship game in 2008.
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Jay-Z's Blueprint 3 Final Tracklisting & Production Revealed: The effort will see Jay-Z return to collaboration vocally and musically with Kanye West, Timbaland, The Neptunes and No I.D. The album also features newcomers Al Shux, J. Cole and Luke Steele. The tracklisting is as follows:
View Tracklisting at Hiphopdx.com

Sources: Iverson Close to Deal With Bobcats:
Dime Magazine's web site reports that Allen Iverson and the Bobcats already have agreed to terms on a contract that will be signed within a week.
I'm told by a great source that's not true. However, that doesn't mean Iverson won't be a Bobcat. It sounds like there's a good chance that will happen. My source says definitively that Iverson's first choice is to play for Larry Brown again in Charlotte, and that there have been serious discussions about making that happen.
However, there are complications. As Brown told me and ESPN.com's Chris Sheridan, the team's payroll and roster both stand in the way. With the Bobcats inching toward the luxury-tax threshold, it's problematic to make Iverson a fair offer, even in a depressed economy. Minutes are another issue: With Raja Bell, D.J. Augustin and restricted free agent Raymond Felton on the roster, where would Brown find sufficient playing time for a nine-time All-Star who averaged nearly 42 minutes his first 12 NBA seasons?
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Slaughterhouse: What the Games Been Missin'

It's a rarity to see a group of young rappers with similar drive and focus set out to achieve a common goal. So you can understand my doubts when I first heard the mention of Slaughterhouse. Sure, it was a good idea in theory; four MCs at pretty much the same stage in their careers uniting to make an album to appease the people. But usually these things don't go as planned. How often do we hear these dudes throw out the "we should do an album together"when talking about a contemporary hip hop artist. I remained dubious when I learned the quartet who formed the group----Joe Budden, Joell Ortiz, Royce the 5'9', Crooked I. I never really listened to Joe Budden (mood music mixtapes weren't bad though), I had only heard a couple verses from Joell Ortiz, I listened to some old Royce when he was runnin with Em, but Crooked I is the only one I could truly say that I bumped. So although I was intrigued by the idea, I wasn't blown away about it.

Shout out to my boy Dub who put me on the the group. The first track I heard by the group was Onslaught, and I was very impressed. Each MC came with a different flavor and more than exceeded my expectations. I already knew that Crooked I was a murderer when it came to assailing the mic, but I was in the dark on the skills of the the remaining members. While I listened to each member leave their imprint, it dawned on me that they would all come to the table with their best material. There would be no way any one of these cats would want to be seen as the weakest link. Sure, you could choose your favorite verse, but you couldn't deny that they all came with it; Onslaught was a befitting title indeed and so was Slaughterhouse. So after several months of features and tracks being released by the group, I started to anticipate the release.

This group was for real and they built even more of a following while preforming on the Rock The Bells Tour. The self titled Slaughterhouse album is one of the best pure hip hop album's I've heard in quite sometime. They didn't follow the prototypical album formula: a commercial hit, a song for the club, the street banga and let's not for get the song or two for the ladies. What they did do was go all in on each track and while maintaining a topic for every song. Most rappers these days don't make any attempt to grow as artist and just put tracks on albums without any depth. So if you're looking for watered down run of the mill hip hop, don't buy this album. Because with this group, you get four artists who show that they still care about what they do and still posses passion for the music.

The Question on The Answer

Let's take a second and reflect on something absolutely ridiculous occurring in the NBA right now, Allen Iverson is not on an NBA team. This is an outrageous, tragic, and extremely disrespectful to one of the best players that has ever picked up a rock. This Legend, two years removed from being the third leading scorer in the NBA, ninth in assists, and fourth in steals is now suddenly abhorred while names like like cancerous, poisonous and chemistry killer have been casted at him like stones. We're talking about one of the fifty greatest of all time who is abruptly "washed up". How did this happen? Let's take a look at the trade between Denver and Detroit that's threatening to push Iverson into early retirement.

For some reason Iverson became the scapegoat for Detroit's downfall and Denver's rise to prosperity in the mighty West. Unfortunately these media know it alls and Iverson detractors fail to recognize all the factors that contributed to the fortune and failure of these two teams. What they are doing is coming to conclusions based on different fallacies to place the blame on Iverson. It's assumed that Denver improved as a team solely based on the Billups/Iverson trade, yet there are other influences that can not be ignored. Marcus Camby was traded and replaced by a healthy Nene. This was extremely important, Nene had gone through two injury plagued season before returning to the line up at 100%. He was a much more active player on offense than Camby and a more than capable post defender while Camby was more of an weak side shot blocker and of the ball defender. Another factor was that the West was a lot less competitive than the previous season. Denver one 50 games in probably the toughest conference in history and drew the Lakers, the best team in the league, and was over matched. With Billups, they won just four more games and drew more favorable match ups on their way to the Western Conference Finals where they were again eliminated by the Lakers. It could be pointed out that they were not swept this time and that they played the Lakers very tough. With Iverson gone, Melo was assumed the role of Alpha Dog and led the Denver offense, but it is unfair to give all the credit due to Billups and blame Iverson for the previous failures.

Hopefully this offseason will end with Iverson playing for a team and having to prove himself yet again to all his doubters. Currently the last two teams in the running are the Charlotte Bobcats (reunited with Larry Brown) and the Miami Heat (teamed with Dwayne Wade). Although I'm an Iverson fan, I do understand that there are some changes that do need to be made to his game for him to fit in with either of these teams. He needs to become more of a distributor to show other GMs that doubted that he can remain in this league while being a worthy contributor to a winning team. Allen Iverson has had an illustrious career, he deserves to have it end on a note where it is recognized as such.