Rap and basketball often go hand-in-hand. Many of the NBA’s players have dabbled in rap, with some, like Shaq, Kobe Bryant, and Dame Lillard, carving full-blown careers in music. Rappers, too have begun to show off their hardwood exploits, with Jack Harlow taking a role in a White Men Can’t Jump remake, Drake hosting his own recreational basketball league, and J. Cole even playing professionally for the Basketball Africa League’s inaugural season. Uproxx has even done a bit of an investigation into the better basketball players among rap’s most enthusiastic wannabe ballers.
But over the weekend, no less an authority than LeBron James, the face of the NBA for nearly two whole decades, crowned rap’s best hooper during his most recent episode of The Shop on HBO. “Lil Durk can hoop,” he said of the Chicago star whose No. 1 album 7220 helped secure him a $40 million contract. “He can hoop for real. Man, he [at] Lifetime hooping. He got a f*cking cannon, too. He got a peel, and he look like a muthaf*cka that can [ball].” Durk was happy to repost the clip of the discussion, which also mentions 2 Chainz, J. Cole, Sheck Wes (who also recently played overseas), and Quavo. “I don’t want to hear sh*t nomo from nobody,” Durk crowed in the caption. Check out the clip below.