• Rapper Jay-Z and Fat Joe put together two blockbuster five-a-side lineups for a legendary matchup at Rucker Park in 2003
• The lineups featured former MVPs Shaquille O’Neal and Allen Iverson, alongside future NBA superstars LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony
• The game never took place due to one of the biggest power outages in US history
The world of basketball was going to see one of the greatest pop culture collaborations in history in 2003 when Jay-Z and Fat Joe put together an All-Star lineup of NBA talent for a winner-takes-all matchup at the iconic Rucker Park.
Jay-Z put together a stacked roster that featured Sebastian Telfair, Jamal Crawford, LeBron James, Lamar Odom, and Shaquille O’Neal. Fat Joe brought some heat of his own, selecting Allen Iverson, Stephon Marbury, Carmelo Anthony, Jermaine O’Neal, and Yao Ming.
The game was ready to start, as the teams had made it over to the venue, and thousands of people waited in line. Fadeaway World’s Eddie Bitar has previously disclosed how Jay-Z even brought $250,000 in cash to his offices in case he lost the game, but didn’t plan on using it. Unfortunately, disaster would soon strike.
With everyone at the venue and the game about to start, New York City was hit with one of its worst blackouts in 25 years. The power went out, and 50 million citizens living across the Northeast and Midwest had their lives affected. For the thousands in attendance at Rucker Park, it meant that the biggest streetball game in history had to be canceled, despite Jay-Z trying to light the court up by using car headlights.
The police would intervene and cancel the game, as this historic matchup became one of the most pressing ‘what-ifs?’ for a generation of hoop fans.
The Greatest Game That Never Was
Fat Joe reflected on the failed matchup years later and claimed he never even saw Shaquille O’Neal on Jay-Z’s roster while naming the players he had ready to play in the game.
“He had LeBron. I can’t really confirm that the other players were on video. I never saw Shaq, I never seen none of the other guys he claimed they had. We had a mean team… I’m bringing, we talking about in their prime, I got Amar’e Stoudemire, Carmelo Anthony, Starbury, Al Harrington, Zach Randolph, The Matrix Shawn Marion. What nobody knew is that I had, in the hotel to come in halftime, AI and Mike Bibby waiting.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNUloQd7Bwg
We can’t verify which players were there and which players weren’t now. What we do know is that one of the biggest games in streetball history never happened.
The only thing that stopped it wasn’t NBA players too scared to play in the summer and humiliate themselves at the Rucker, but because of a mass electrical failure that is remembered to this day. It would’ve been a treat with highlights that would be replayed to this day, especially given the participation of LeBron and Carmelo before they even made their NBA debuts.
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