Tag: Eldridge Recasner

Eldridge Recasner (Hornets guard): One day I get up to go downstairs for breakfast and I’m just seeing all these people that I knew from New Orleans, all these guys that I played high school basketball with. Cass Clarke was one guy who played at the University of New Orleans. Kurt Hankton was another guy. I’m like, “What the hell are y’all doing here?” They were all working for Master P. They were like, “Oh man, P’s trying out for the team. He’s gonna make the squad.” So I started laughing. I was like, “Are you guys serious?” But he had his whole entourage with him at the Embassy Suites hotel. Chucky Brown (Hornets forward): When it first happened, I didn’t know P’s past as far as playing went. You really didn’t know what to expect. You have a lot of basketball players that wanna rap. You have a lot of rappers that wanna play basketball. So you didn’t know how it was gonna be.

Chucky Brown: He was raw as a player. He had game, but he knew more of the playground stuff. For example, I can remember one incident where Bobby Phills was on the low post and P came and set a screen for him when he had the ball. In the NBA, you don’t wanna do that. You wanna space the floor. Bobby told him, “Don’t do that. Don’t come set the screen down here. We wanna keep the space so I can do my work, and if somebody comes and double-teams, then I can get it out and now we’re moving around the perimeter.” Recasner: There’s a lot of connection between the hip-hop world and basketball. I would say 50 percent of the league back then was probably listening to his music in their pregame. I know I was. (If) you’re trying to get hyped for a game back in ’99, 2000, you’re listening to Master P.

Dee Brown: (Laughs loudly) That’s not true. P never beat me in practice. He never beat me in a drill. He never beat me in one-on-one. I told him, “Hey, I don’t try to go and rap. Don’t try to come on the basketball court and shoot jumpers with me. You ain’t got a chance.” I told him that to his face. He tried. He tried hard. And yeah, as a rookie, I’d run him off screens, I’d throw an elbow here, Antonio Davis would give him a little hip-check there. So yeah, he went through it. But as far as me, I was one of the captains, one of the five or six best players on the team. I wasn’t worried about Master P, trust me. I was worried about freaking Greg Anthony and Mookie Blaylock. I wasn’t worried about Master P.