It had been rumored for some time that Kevin Durant was going to ignore the precedent set by so many NBA players before him and try his hand at the rap game. A lot of us thought it was a joke because we watched the trailer for Durant’s film debut, Thunderstruck, and we figured someone close to the Oklahoma City Thunder star would tell him to chill out with the non-basketball stuff until he had a few rings and hundreds of millions of dollars. After all, you either need to be a champion or a complete lunatic to qualify for NBA-player-turned-rapper status. Unless you’re Tony Parker, because he gets the “Eh, he’s French” exemption.

But speaking of lunatics, it’s Stephen Jackson AKA STAK5 that has brought Durant to our ears on his latest mixtape, “Jack of all Trades”. Durant appears on the track “Lonely at the Top”, which is an anthem for all of you who are affected by the haters out there. According to our friends at The Basketball Jones, LeBron James will also be featured on a STAK5 track, but we’ll have to wait for the album’s full release to know if that’s true.

Until then, here’s Durant’s long-awaited debut…

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Last month, the incomparable Will Leitch wrote probably the most poignant piece to date on how American sports fans and TV audience can best combat ESPN’s resident troll, Skip Bayless. Essentially, the point was “Just don’t watch, don’t feed the troll” and he was right to an extent. The problem is that the average sports fan – the kind that takes sports way too seriously and can’t handle someone criticizing his team – is the little fish taking the bait every time. That’s why First Take has solid ratings, and that’s why ESPN has shamefully embraced the debate format over actual news.

The other problem is that even the big fish can’t ignore Bayless’ shiny lure, as we’ve already seen Chad Johnson “debate” Bayless and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban “own” him. It’s just too bad that even when Bayless is being “owned”, he wins because people tuned in. Ultimately, we can only stop Bayless by completely ignoring him, and that’s not going to happen anytime soon, thanks to Kevin Durant being his latest mark.

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During the 2012 Summer Olympics, it was reported that security at the London venues was instructed to crack down on any people who tried to attend events while wearing recognizable logos of companies that weren’t exclusive sponsors. That was a very nice way of saying that McDonald’s owned the fry monopoly and Coke wanted to kick out anyone wearing Pepsi logos, which would have sucked for me because my whole wardrobe is nothing but Mountain Dew shirts.

This was a little unfair to the average Joe, Boris or Ming cheering on their countries, because as some surveys showed, nobody knew which companies were even sponsoring the Olympics. In fact, 37% of the 1,034 people who took part in an online survey believed that Nike was a sponsor, when it fact it wasn’t – Nike does, however, sponsor Team USA and other countries so it didn’t matter – and this just basically proved what we already knew – Nike is really awesome at marketing.

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The Team USA blooper reel is nice, especially that shot LeBron makes at 1:25. That’s all basketball should be, people spinning around making video game hook shots. (via BroBible, by way of Hot Clicks)

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Links

Leg Kick TKO, aka “Lobster Mobster’s MMA Blog” |LegKickTKO|

Louis C.K. Workshopped New Material At A Last-Minute Show In Brooklyn, Added Impressions To His Repertoire |Warming Glow|

Meme Watch: ‘Thor’ And ‘Arrested Development’ Are Basically The Same |UPROXX|

Fun Excerpts From The Michael Bay Ninja Turtles Script |Film Drunk|

A Golden Treasury Of Cheesy Late-80s/Early-90s WWF Promo Photos |With Leather|

The 15 Funniest Fake Amazon Reviews Of Bic’s Pens ‘For Her’ |Gamma Squad|

The Best And Worst Of Madden 13 |Smoking Section|

The New Rules for Dez Bryany |Kissing Suzy Kolber|

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The U.S. Men’s Basketball Team handily defeated France yesterday or the day before or whenever the hell NBC taped it, as Kevin Durant and LeBron James made it look way too easy in a 98-71 victory. France’s bottle-popping point guard Tony Parker led us to believe that his team of baguette-bangers would give the Americans a headache, but with James playing in another universe right now, that doesn’t seem quite possible.

Unfortunately, instead of focusing on simply how well this team is playing – despite a few flaws that shouldn’t really factor into a gold medal victory – we’re still doing it. We’re still having this stupid ass conversation. Could James and the 2012 USA team defeat the 1992 Dream Team that featured the NBA’s greatest legends? The answer is no. Not because the Dream Team was better, but because we cannot manipulate time to get these two teams on the same court at the same time.

But that’s a fact, and facts are stupid when it comes to printing lazy journalism – like, say, suggesting that Michael Phelps used steroids. Hey LeBron, why don’t you tell us about your focus and intensity and how they relate to you being able to throw a missile bounce pass across the court for a perfect assist? Haha, just kidding. Give us some forced rhetoric instead.

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Taiwan’s Next Media Animation asks the two most important questions about LeBron James and the Miami Heat’s 2012 NBA Championship victory:

1. Will LeBron win six more, so he can be better than Michael Jordan? And
2. Why were Jesus and God blatantly interfering in LeBron’s previous games?

Number two has a less obvious answer, but watching Jesus goaltend and God flatten LeBron like a bug for traveling driving the lane is fun to watch without having to know why. Other highlights include a pretty accurate depiction of the Oklahoma City Thunder standing around like bowling pins, Michael Jordan’s M. Bison laugh and Kevin Durant having lightning powers.

Video is below. Stick around until the end for maximum Carol.

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