NBA players like rapping, and that is a fact of the universe that we are powerless to stop. The way that I have tended to deal this phenomenon is generally to ignore it completely. It is shockingly easy to do: Just as I do with Kreayshawn, I pretend that NBA rappers do not exist, that they have never existed, and that one day, they actually will cease to exist, so that what I've been pretending all along will be true, and everything will be fine.

The problem with that approach is that NBA players keep rapping.

So, in honor of Pearl Jam/Björk Week (and in honor of recalling a time when pro basketball existed and pro basketball players could boast about that fact on a song), I listened to some NBA rap over the past few days. Here's one thing I learned: If all NBA rap were, in fact, suddenly eliminated from the canon, then humanity would lose out on the ever-important "Life is like a jump shot" analogy, which has been employed by just about every pro basketball player who has ever rapped in the history of both of those things, regardless of its accuracy.

Beyond that, however, there is not a whole lot here—unless you get nostalgic for a time when Dana Barros could snarl "I stay strapped!" over a classic West Coast beat. But it's possible that I'm still shortchanging these men. I've broken the following ten samples into two categories: The Passable, and The Unpassable. Please share your thoughts in the comments.