Hip-Hop Hoops.

What happens when the MC dribbles and the center rhymes

It was 1996, and Allen Iverson, Stephon Marbury, John Wallace, and Dontae Jones were getting a taste of the pros' life in the National Basketball Association's Rookie Transition Program. The first-round draft picks had money in their pockets, fame in their future, and a chauffeur-driven limousine escorting them around Orlando, Florida. But trading high-fives proved inadequate to express the excitement they felt about having attained their lifelong dream. So the quartet decided to celebrate through song: rap songs.

There, in the back of the limo, they improvised lyrics, each taking turns reciting original rhymes about his basketball prowess, newfound wealth, and soon-to-be-acquired material possessions. In hip-hop vernacular, they were freestyling.

"We were just flowing, rapping about everything," says Marbury, the star point guard for the New Jersey Nets. "I usually don't rap, but it was like `All right, now you go.' So I just said some junk. I don't even know what it was, but it was rhyming."

THE NBA-RAP CONNECTION

Similar scenes are played out every season in the NBA, where hip-hop music is as prevalent as the jump shot. It is played in locker rooms before games and in arenas during halftimes. Scores of players write rhymes on the plush, chartered flights to and from games, while others own record labels. The Portland Trail Blazers' Rasheed Wallace and the Seattle SuperSonics' Gary Payton have rap radio shows. This summer, Marbury and Boston Celtics point guard Kenny Anderson played ball against the Terror Squad's Big Pun and Fat Joe in the video "Whatcha' Goin' Do."

While athletes in other sports may have similar experiences, the NBA has a closer connection to hip-hop than any other professional league. That is partly because of the overwhelming number of black players, but also because the league has embraced hip-hop. Every February, the NBA invites popular rappers to perform at its All-Star weekend, and two rap songs, Kurtis Blow's mid-1980s classic "Basketball" and Naughty By Nature's "Hip-Hop Hooray," appear on the league's 50th-anniversary soundtrack. The Charlotte Hornets (last season) and the Toronto Raptors (this season) even invited Master 19, a platinum-selling rapper with dreams of playing in the NBA, to their training camps, despite the widely held belief that he lacks the ability to play professionally.

THE HIP-HOP ATTITUDE

Even the style of play, at least among some of the game's younger stars, has become hip-hop. Like the rappers who almost uniformly refuse to smile in photographs and videos, lots of young players wear defiant scowls that project a raplike toughness and rebellion. And the prevalence of one-upmanship--staring menacingly at an opponent after dunking on him, or raising one's arms to the sky after making a nice play--is the basketball equivalent of the boastful rap song.

"Hip-hop is just part of a lot of the athletes' culture," says New Jersey Nets guard Kerry Kitties. "All of us grew up listening to rap and playing ball, and the rappers grew up doing the same thing. A lot of players want to be rappers, and a lot of rappers would like to be players."

While some fans see an athlete's musical venture as a faddish pipe dream, many players view it as an opportunity to fulfill a goal that has been secondary only to reaching the NBA "I've been writing rhymes since I was about 12 years old," says John Wallace, a forward for the New York Knicks. "Next to playing ball, it's one of my deepest passions."

MC SHAQ BLAZES THE TRAIL

With four successful rap albums to his credit, the Los Angeles Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal is the greatest example of an NBA player becoming a rapper. But many others hope to follow in his path. Chris Webber, a star power forward for the Sacramento Kings, released his debut album entitled 2 Much Drama last spring on his own Humility label. O'Neal's teammate Kobe Bryant, who spent much of the summer honing his lyrical skills with superstar rapper Jay Z, is working on a project for Columbia Records. Iverson, who according to his Philadelphia 76ers teammates raps "all the time" in the locker room, hopes to release an album. Los Angeles Clippers guard Derek Anderson is represented by Master P's No Limit Sports Management and is hoping to join the No Limit stable of rappers. Cedric Ceballos of the Dallas Mavericks is reputed to be a top lyricist, and the Portland Trail Blazers' Wallace appears on a demo tape with a respected underground group from his native Philadelphia.

QUALITY'S ANOTHER MATTER

A music critic for The Source, a hip-hop culture magazine, says none of the players are good enough to have landed recording contracts if they hadn't already been well-known athletes. But many athletes believe that their fame works against them, keeping them from being taken seriously as rappers. "They look at us like this is just a hobby for us," says Philadelphia 76ers forward Tyrone Hill, whose All Net Records has released a couple of poorly received albums. "We want to get in their industry and some of them want to play ball. You would think that both sides would come together and say, `OK, you help us and we'll help you.'"

Maybe. But fans might not buy it until more players can rap like Jay-Z, and Master P perfects his jump shot.