RUCKER PARK DIARIES: PART II

As the season progressed, the excitement grew, especially when the S. Carter team bus pulled up to 155th Street and Eighth Avenue. Shortly after Sebastian Telfair made his S. Carter debut, Jay Z looked to the Midwest to secure a shooting guard to compliment Telfair, along with a formidable interior post presence.

“I remember when he called me up on the phone,” current Los Angles Clipper and former Chicago Bulls guard Jamal Crawford once said. “I was in Chicago. He was like, ‘Man! I need you to come play for me. I cannot lose. I cannot lose! I want you and Eddy (Curry) to come.’ So me and Eddy went down there and played our first game.”

Crawford endeared himself to the Harlem faithful early on, when he split a double team at the foul line, tossed himself an alley-oop off the backboard, and flushed it down with two hands, earning him the playground nickname ‘True Essence.’

“I played in front of 20,000 people all the time at the United Center, but playing on that Rucker court is just crazy,” Crawford once said when recalling his first moments in the legendary park. “The excitement, the energy, each week just got better. I just got addicted to going out there. I started coming out to New York every week. First, I was gonna come for one or two games. But I got addicted. Every week, I was on a flight coming to New York.”

“It was electric that summer,” Crawford’s then-Bulls teammate Eddy Curry said when reflecting on 2003. “It was my first time hanging out in New York, soaking it all in. Going to the park was incredible man.”

One of the most incredible memories for many that summer didn’t even involve basketball. Some may have forgotten who played and what the score was on that certain day, but they’ll never forget when Jay Z walked into the park flanked by Bad Boy impresario ‘Diddy’ and girlfriend Beyoncé.

 

The S. Carter and Terror Squad teams steamrolled through the regular season, each week seemingly upping the ante. Al Harrington was putting in work for Fat Joe’s crew. Jay Z imported Kenyon Martin as the regular season wound down. With the stars in the basketball constellation seemingly aligned, the matchup that everybody had anticipated since the summer of 2003 began, Terror Squad vs. S. Carter, had arrived as both teams convincingly dispatched all of their playoff opponents.

Fat Joe and Jay Z’s teams were destined for a head-on collision in the most anticipated Finals, not only in Rucker Park or EBC history, but in the entirety of playground basketball history. The game could not have had a bigger build-up had it been a Game 7 NBA Finals dustup between Magic’s Lakers and Bird’s Celtics in the ’80s. “It was an incredible tournament because from the beginning it was many, many great teams,” hip-hop pioneer, artist and filmmaker Fab Five Freddy once said. “The anticipation — the excitement around every game was crazy and the dream scenario was Fat Joe versus Jay Z.”

On the scheduled day of the championship game, on August 14, 2003, there was an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people lined up to get into Rucker Park hours before tip-off. To add even more spice to the event, the fervor and eagerness of those who waited was augmented by a new rule change that went into effect that summer, which stipulated that, in the championship game, teams were allowed to add players that hadn’t yet suited up for them during the season.

On June 23rd, Jay Z was unequivocal about his intentions when he stated: “If we get anywhere near the championship game, I promise problems!”

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As the S. Carter bus idled in front of the park, word rippled through the throng of assembled among fans, all the way past 145th Street and further downtown — some who’d been in line for close to eight hours — about who Jay Z was suiting up for the final.

“Shaq and Tracy McGrady were on the bus,” Telfair once said with a sinister grin on his face. “And LeBron was definitely gonna play that day. He had his jersey on, his sneakers, and had someone there to tape his ankles and everything.” Unfortunately, the star wattage could not sustain New York City’s faulty power grid, as August 14, 2003 witnessed the largest blackout in North American history. The NYPD detail assigned to the park for the EBC championship game had to be pulled off to tend to the city’s emergency needs. The game had to be re-scheduled.

“I was playing, but then the blackout happened and everything was shut down, so we weren’t allowed to play there,” LeBron James later recalled. “We just sat on the bus. The lights never came on so we just relaxed.”

“I was on the bus,” Shaq once said when asked to confirm if he was indeed going to play for Jay Z that night. “I wanted to make the ‘Brick City’ entrance. You know how we do. Jay Z sent a plane to come pick me up. Everybody was saying that Fat Joe had Yao Ming. Fat Joe is my guy, but if he was gonna bring Yao Ming to the city, you know I had to come and shut that down.”

Not to be outdone, Fat Joe had secured the services of one of the hottest players in all of basketball at the time, a precocious young talent who was coming off of delivering Coach Jim Boeheim his first and only National Championship at Syracuse University. “I was gonna play for Fat Joe and the Terror Squad,” Carmelo Anthony said. “We were gonna play against Jay Z, but then the blackout happened.”

The game was re-scheduled for August 18th. But when that day arrived, Jay was on a yacht in the South of France chilling with Beyoncé on their previously planned vacation.

The Chicago Bulls demanded that Eddy Curry and Jamal Crawford return to the Windy City and not risk any injury prior to the start of training camp. Shaq, LeBron, Tracy McGrady, Kenyon Martin, and many of the other S. Carter players had previously scheduled commitments that wouldn’t allow them to attend.

The S. Carter bus did pull up in front of Rucker Park that night, but the team that walked out was comprised of players like John ‘The Franchise’ Strickland — local stars who’d suited up during the year that were still in New York City and available to play. Tensions in the park ran high on both sides, and ultimately the game was never played. There was talk of the game being moved to Madison Square garden in early September, but it never came to fruition.

Marius, EBC’s commissioner and CEO, ruled that Terror Squad was the 2003 champion as a result of a forfeit by the S. Carter team. Unfortunately, that summer is remembered more for its unceremonious ending. But for those who were a part of the magic, it was the summer of Jay Z, Fat Joe, Terror Squad, S. Carter — the best summer in the history of the Entertainer’s Basketball Classic.