"We're Talking About Practice"

Having had some time to acquaint myself with the first-round exit of the Toronto Raptors from the NBA playoffs to the much reviled Vince Carter and the New Jersey Nets I thought I'd return with a basketball-themed post.

The Raptors can be proud of the way they played in the series, especially in the last two games and can take some solace in the fact that they lasted longer than some heavily favoured teams with superstars such as the Dallas Mavericks (Damn, Dirk!).

One of the other teams to bow out before the Raps were the Denver Nuggets, a roster highlighted by the presence of Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson. While
Iverson and the Nuggets may also be out of the NBA playoffs, the emergence of "The Return of the Magnificent," the new album by DJ Jazzy Jeff has brought some added post-season attention to AI, courtesy of Iverson's infamous practice rant being used on a song called, well, "Practice" by J-Live.

In case you're not familiar, when Iverson was a member of the Philadelphia 76ers, he once went off on the media after he missed a practice mentioning the word about 500 times in an unintentionally hilarious press conference.

Jazzy Jeff and J-Live have flipped it to talk about attaining and maintaining as an independent hip-hop artist. It's a simple yet effective, combining a classically humorous moment with J-Live's always astute lyricism to be one of my favourite tracks of the moment.

You can check out "Practice" on DJ Jazzy Jeff's Myspace....
DJ Jazzy Jeff featuring J-Live - MySpace


...and the classic Iverson rant right here.