Team Flight Brothers in “Life of a Pro Dunker” – Time 4 Some NBA All-Star Game Action The Latest / Nov 21, 2011 / 1:58 pm

This video aired during the NCAA 2011 Final Four weekend puts David Stern and the powers that be on notice. Give Team Flight Brothers a spot in the 2012 All-Star Game Dunk Contest. The Blake over the car All-Star dunk with the choir and emcee Kenny Smith was hot, but Bounce had Hook Mitchell doing that on the cover in 2005. The street always has the formula first. Time for some action, some Mike Tyson hype in the event. Ya know what I’m sayin’.

2011 Summer Ball: Five WorldWide Predictions The Latest / Jun 16, 2011 / 5:10 pm

2 Hard 2 Guard glowing like Iron Man outside Dyckman Park – Team Nike 2011 before first 5k game vs United Brooklyn

I got five predictions for Summer 2011, and I’ve stated my thoughts on Dyckman Park. I personally don’t feel that the park is ready for 5k Weds nights, but I want to be wrong. I remember being one of those dudes that wanted to compete and get paid, and I also remember being a coach in Dyckman Park with a brand. And while I never received a dollar to coach or paid a player to play outdoors, I know the energy of the spot. So with that said, I’m going to make some predictions and if anyone wants to hate, slip in out of the frame thinking it doesn’t narrow, constrict and coil, trust me fams it’s not the year for it, and ultimately, it’s just an opinion! Read More »

Street Dogma On-line: “On the Shoulders of Giants” by Streetball’s Finest: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Best of Playground, The Latest, flopain / Feb 26, 2010 / 5:32 pm

Black History Month Reading.

“Most people get it wrong. History isn’t about showcasing the differences between us and those who lived before us so that we can feel superior; it’s about revealing the similarities so we can feel gratitude and humility. – Forward written by Quincy Jones in the book: On the Shoulders of Giants.

I grew up in the same projects that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar lived in during his teenage years. Kareem’s importance as a player is obvious as the All-Time Leading Scorer in NBA history but it is his writing talent as a “MC” of African-American history that makes the book published a few years back titled On the Shoulders of Giants a must read. The book is written in the code of African-American communication – one that calls for a response from the crowd it addresses. Sounds like Streetball to me!

Jazz-inspired Kareem developed his famous hook shot from a never-duplicated inspiration that started with James Couch, his first playground coach. Ask him (At 78, still able to display the pristine hook shot form.) one day to shoot a hook shot and see what I mean.

I highlighted Jabbar’s importance in a piece I wrote in Bounce 23 called From the Dotted Line is Whack…?? Kareem’s dominance caused the NCAA to ban the dunk in ‘67 and the energy of the dunk became an after school project playground experiment back in the day. High School players expressed themselves in the air and at the rim after their seasons finished with a new creative style inspired by the R&B and subsequent Disco craze that swept the nation in the ’70s. Dr. J and David Thompson were children of that generation. That all turned into the greatest of all music phenomena – Hip Hop.

The creativity of the sample and scratch was the inspiration for one of the principle GrandMasters of the Air – Michael Jordan. Bounce 23’s article is a tribute to Kareem’s basketball talent and strong jazz background and shows the connection to the subsequent aerial explosion the NBA saw mature into a beast with Air Jordan.

So all you hip hop heads, feel Grandmaster Flash, Grandmaster Caz, DJ Hollywood, Jammaster J and DJ GrandWizard Theodore – men who gave RUN DMC, Jay Z, P. Diddy and the rest a way to eat well – as my inspiration for this article if you press Read More »

High Schooler to Challenge Competition Overseas, and Stern? The Latest / Apr 24, 2009 / 2:35 pm

Jeremy Tyler, seen here at the LeBron James Skills Academy, announced this week that he will forego his senior year of high school to play overseas. Photo: highschoolhoop.com

David Stern was met with fierce opposition when he ruled that players had to be a year out of high school before entering the NBA.

Coaches, including then Texas Tech head Bobby Knight, argued that the age-minimum hurt the college game because there would be too many “one-and-dones,” and NBA players said it was unfair to make more-than-ready high schoolers wait an extra year to accomplish their dreams. Read More »