{"id":1861814,"date":"2026-04-02T13:48:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T10:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1861814"},"modified":"2026-04-02T13:48:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T10:48:48","slug":"rapper-j-cole-to-join-chinese-pro-basketball-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1861814","title":{"rendered":"Rapper J. Cole to join Chinese pro basketball team"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rap star J. Cole is taking his love for basketball to China.<\/p>\n

Cole (born Jermaine Cole) has signed to play for the Nanjing Monkey Kings of the Chinese Basketball Association, his third time signing with a professional league. ESPN first reported the news late Wednesday. Cole posted a video<\/a> on the Chinese social media platform Douyin announcing he\u2019d arrived in China.<\/p>\n

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The Grammy Award-winning rapper and producer is a 6-foot-3 guard who played three games for the Rwanda-based Patriots Basketball Club of the Basketball Africa League in 2021, averaging 1.7 points and 1.7 rebounds. He then played in five games for the Toronto-based Scarborough Shooting Stars of the Canadian Elite Basketball League in 2022, averaging 2.4 points, 0.6 rebounds and 0.4 assists.<\/p>\n

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Cole played high school basketball in Fayetteville, N.C., and accepted an academic scholarship to St. John\u2019s. He tried out for the Red Storm as a walk-on in the early 2000s. Now 41, Cole will get arguably his biggest opportunity to play pro basketball for a Nanjing program that once included NBA players Willie Cauley-Stein, Tacko Fall and Antonio Blakeney.<\/p>\n

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Cole mentioned he\u2019d be playing basketball in China during his recent media tour discussing his latest album \u201cThe Fall-Off,\u201d as well as other topics related to music, sports and culture. In an interview with rapper Cam\u2019Ron on the \u201cTalk With Flee\u201d show that aired March 25, then again last week on the \u201c7PM in Brooklyn Podcast with Carmelo Anthony,\u201d he mentioned that China would be his next destination.<\/p>\n

Cole told Cam\u2019Ron that Nanjing offered to have him play last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking at the clock like, boy, I\u2019m getting older,\u201d Cole said. \u201cThis might be my last shot. I\u2019m going to keep my word to them and show up and play a couple of games. \u2026 I\u2019m going to go out there and have fun with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Basketball has been a large part of Cole\u2019s music, with references to hoops throughout his career. He recently cited Steph Curry\u2019s career as an inspiration<\/a>. He played in the NBA Celebrity Game in 2012<\/a>. He also appeared on the cover of basketball magazine SLAM in May 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A multiplatinum artist, Cole won a Grammy for Best Rap Song in 2020 for \u201cA Lot,\u201d a collaboration with 21 Savage. He won a second Grammy four years later for Best Melodic Rap Performance for \u201cAll My Life,\u201d as he teamed up with Lil Durk. Cole has recently been in the public eye more for his new album and his willingness to discuss why he apologized to Kendrick Lamar in 2024 for a diss track and chose not to participate in the rap beef between Lamar and Drake, which dominated the music world for more than a year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rap star J. Cole is taking his love for basketball to China. Cole (born Jermaine Cole) has signed to play for the Nanjing Monkey Kings of the Chinese Basketball Association, his third time signing with a professional league. ESPN first reported the news late Wednesday. Cole posted a video on the Chinese social media platform […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1861814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1861814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1861814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1861814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1861814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}