Open Thread: Prince draws comparisons to Steph Curry
A revisit to the Chapelle Show reveals the Purple One’s basketball prowess
Twenty years ago, Dave Chapelle’s highly popular sketch dedicated some time to cast member Charlie Murphy’s storytelling. If you don’t know the answer to “what did the five fingers say to the face?” you need to stop and Google “Chapelle Show Rick James” right away.
Eddie Murphy’s older brother, who was a regular on Chapelle’s Show, made a name for himself telling about how he and his brother were received by other celebrities of the time.
In his second installment, Murphy recalls how Eddie’s entourage was invited to Prince’s home where they played basketball.
“Dave Chappelle’s story is true,” said Jim Petersen, the longtime Timberwolves TV analyst and a star high school and college hoops player in Minnesota. “That’s a true story.”
Prince, not known for his basketball IQ as well as his music genius, has been compared to one of the greatest shooters of all time.
Another famous Minnesota musician, James Samuel Harris III, known to the world as “Jimmy Jam,” who was coincidentally at the Timberwolves final game with Snoop Dogg, corroborated that Prince was quite adept on the court.
“He was basically like Steph Curry. He had great handles, could shoot the lights out. When he’d come up to court [in high school], all the girls would go, ‘Ah, Prince!’ They’d all scream.”
Prince played basketball at Bryant Junior High in Minneapolis and was a member of the junior varsity team at Central High School in St. Paul, and although His Purple Majesty never advanced through the game, he never stopped playing.
Jimmy Jam added:
“I remember when we were recording at Sunset Sound, he used to play all the time. He basically would play HORSE. He could do a shot like, ‘I’m going to bounce it off the roof’ and kill everybody at HORSE. That basket is still there.”
R.I.P to both Prince and Charlie Murphy who left us in 2016 and 2017 respectively.
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