Sports: NBA Players & Their Pop-Music Alter-Egos!!! Does Kobe Bryant = Kanye West?! Guess Which Athlete is Jay-Z?!
Athletes wanna be an artist and musicians wanna ball. It’s just what it is nowadays and this is pretty dope! Spin.com did a gallery of 40 NBA players and their musical equivalents. For example Kobe Bryant as Kanye West. The compare LeBron, Dwight, DRose, Wade & many more. Check it out & let us know if you think they’re on point?!
1. LeBron James (Miami Heat) is Jack White (Third Man)
The Big Kahunas
Back in the late ’90s, when NBA and college scouts alike began drooling at the thought of LeBron James in their lineup, and the media began calling him the Chosen One, LeBron was still a kid trapped in the body of a man — in the body of an action figure, really. No matter how many weapons LeBron adds to his game (one a summer now), it’s the way he engages with his body (his head has just arrived) that’s carried him to a ring, plus a pile of MVP trophies. The most physically dominant force the game has ever known (sorry, Shaq), he often makes you forget that he’s playing against grown professionals. It’s his body that links him to perhaps the only other guy who knows what it is to bring such physicality and versatility to an art form. No one can punish a guitar or shriek melodically or transform his collaborators like Jack White does, nor can they produce and engineer and market like he does either, roles that (on the floor and off) LeBron knows better than any other player of his generation. White is our biggest, brightest, most actively evolving rock star, a supernova. LeBron’s still just starting to explode. DAVID BEVAN
2. Kobe Bryant (Los Angeles Lakers) is Kanye West (G.O.O.D. Music/Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam)
The Driven Divas
It would be cheeky enough to suggest that the NBA player with whom Kanye has the most in common is Kris Humphries, but only the Black Mamba has shared ‘Ye’s complicated relationship with fighting to dominate, then attempting to share, the spotlight with his elders, peers, and lesser teammates. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was Kanye dropping 81 on the Raptors; 808s & Heartbreak was Kobe buying Vanessa a $4 million mea-culpa diamond ring post-Aspen. But years after a bitterly exiled Shaq asked the musical question, “Kobe, tell me how my ass taste?” Bryant isn’t merely tolerating collaboration from the likes of Dwight Howard, Steve Nash, and Pau Gasol, he’s relying on it.Watch the Throne, indeed, Miami. STEVE KANDELL
3. Kevin Durant (Oklahoma City Thunder) is Frank Ocean (Def Jam)
The Nerdy Prodigies
Shy, subdued, sublimely talented, and not without their share of kaleidoscopic quirks, Durant and Ocean also represent unlimited potential: thankfully, we don’t yet know how great they can be. Durant, already a three-time NBA scoring champ at 24, is a backpack (singular, no -ing) enthusiast who, despite his sinewy, mantid-like frame, has frustrated (one might say embarrassed) far heftier, more experienced defenders throughout the league. The New Orleans-born Ocean, a 25-year-old tenor some have already compared to Sam Cooke, is a soul singer and old soul (in stark contrast contrast to his Odd Future affiliation) whose self-penned revelations on this year’s channel ORANGEcount as 2012’s most haunting moments by a wide margin. Both seem as though they were born to do what they do — the smoothness of their work suggests they might be able to do much more. D.B.
4. Dwight Howard (Los Angeles Lakers) is Nicki Minaj (Young Money/Cash Money/Universal Republic)
The Superfreaks
Every Tom, Shaq, and Peter seems to have an opinion about how these badasses should handle their business, but only straight-up fools question their staggering athletic/artistic skills. Howard is, by far, the most dominant center in the league, and Minaj, by far, is the most dominant female rapper of all time. They’re both currently navigating some shaky crew affiliations while not sacrificing their naturally free-spirited, admittedly hyper-sensitive personalities. And maybe Howard could develop a couple of consistent post moves that didn’t involve brute-force devastation, and Minaj could lay off the overly gooey EDM-pop confections, but that’s quibbling. Next time somebody asks Howard whether the Lakers are his or Kobe’s team, he should simply quote Nicki’s “Stupid Hoe”: “These bitches is my sons and I don’t want custody.” CHARLES AARON
5. Derrick Rose (Chicago Bulls) is Adele (XL/Columbia)
The Gimpy Thoroughbreds
It was excruciatingly cruel when Derrick Rose, the NBA’s reigning MVP and brightest star, crumpled to the court in a heap with a shredded ACL, taking with him the Chicago Bulls’ chances of a 2012 playoff run. It was equally cruel to see Adele, at the peak of her post-21 Grammy-hording, bajillion-selling triumph, have to cancel her first headlining arena tour and fear for the future of her career after surgery on her vocal cords. Both are on the mend and laying low — he may return by the All-Star break, she’s birthing a baby and singing James Bond themes — with goodwill intact and hopeful fans waiting anxiously.S.K.
6. Chris Paul (Los Angeles Clippers) is Carrie Brownstein (Wild Flag, ‘Portlandia’)
The Do-Everything Team Players
7. Carmelo Anthony (New York Knicks) is John Mayer (Columbia)
The Baffling Virtuosos
9. Kevin Garnett (Boston Celtics) is Eminem (Shady/Aftermath)
The Mouthy Hall-of-Famers
In the beginning, they were anomalies: Eminem was a white, shockingly dexterous rapper more akin to Ice Cube than Vanilla Ice; KG was a towering high-school phenom with an inside/outside game that would change the way we think about big men. Both eventually became storied figures in their respective games — Em as one of hip-hop’s greats alongside Jay-Z and Lil Wayne, while KG (with his Platonic jumper and ferocious, Rodman-esque rebounding ability) dominated the NBA in the years between Jordan and LeBron, culminating in a 2008 championship with Boston. They’re both fiery and abrasive, unyielding and intense, two titans in the twilight of their careers, but monuments nonetheless. DANIEL KREPS
10. Dwyane Wade (Miami Heat) is Jay-Z (Roc Nation)
The Stubborn Patriarchs
One is Brooklyn’s finest, the other is Miami’s beloved adopted son, and both remain confident they were born to rep a world unbound by zip code. But since Hov’s 2003 Black Album and Wade’s 2006 finals MVP, their already-legendary careers have become a mishmash of duff-to-dazzling comebacks, repeated confetti-cannon victory laps, and constant, noodgy ploys to reassert their alpha-dog biting force while appearing wholly magnanimous: Jay shared his realm with Kanye (sorta) and Dwyane deferred to LeBron (eventually). Still, their late-career bullheadedness has served them phenomenally well, in and out of the arena — Jay’s still-unmatched live show and branding juggernaut; Wade’s 2012 NBA championship (via LeBron) and ongoing philanthropy. Plus, they both married showbiz goddesses — Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and Gabrielle Union — so, as the song says: “This shit gravy.” C.A.
13. Rajon Rondo (Boston Celtics) is Lil Wayne (Cash Money/Young Money/Universal Republic)
The Unknowable Geniuses
Unearthly is perhaps the best way to describe Rondo and Weezy’s mesmerizing, mercurial games. In part, because both of them possess the ability, and the inclination, to perform feats that no one else would ever think to try. And because they can take otherwise banal scenarios — like a Playaz Circle track or a Tuesday night against the Raptors — and turn them into jaw-dropping, highlight-reel moments. Of course, they can also go into alien-nation mode, drifting through surreal bouts of rage or flights of fancy, like going for a header after tip-off or Wayne’s lean-inspired musing “I Feel Like Dying.” Either way, these two men are sui generis — no matter which one of them shows up.CLAIRE LOBENFELD
*You can check out the FULL list at SPIN.com*
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