What Up, Gangsta!

Meet Earl Smith III, also known as J.R. Smith. New Jersey native. Professional basketball player for the Denver Nuggets. Millionaire.

And now, allegedly an internet gang-banger. "Blood" to be specific.

Smith was photographed throwing up Blood gang signs during a night out on the town. The night soon became infamous because he put out a Tweet earlier in the day, asking for women followers to join him and his crew in a limo (obviously for Bible study). There ended up being 18 scantily-clad women who made the cut, and he posted photos of the evening on his Twitter account.

Another photo of the same night was posted by one of the ladies, and it shows Smith throwing up signs associated with the Bloods.

Smith is a talent, no doubt. Watch him drop 43 points off the bench against the Chicago Bulls, or hit 11 threes against the Sacramento Kings, and you know there is no denying he plays basketball well. Still, there is one big reason why Smith has been in the NBA for seven years, and still cant find a team willing to make him a starter, or pay him big money.

J.R. Smith is just plain dumb.

It's not nice to say, but its true. He was drafted out of high school by the New Orleans Hornets, where he averaged 10 ppg his rookie season, and by all accounts drove Byron Scott bat-bleep crazy. The team traded him to the Bulls a year and a half later for center Tyson Chandler. The Bulls then traded Smith to the Denver Nuggets for two second round picks and Howard Eisley without ever having him suit up.

Translation, they didn't want any piece of that idiot.

Of course Smith blossomed into some sort of quasi-star in Denver, because the Nuggets organization is a rest haven for headcases. Smith blends in well with the likes of Kenyon Martin, Chris "Birdman" Anderson, "team leader" Carmelo Anthony, and head coach of the head cases, George Karl. He's become a cult hero to Nuggets fans who have come to expect up-and-down performances, incredible dunks, streaky shooting, and of course him throwing up "PIRU" after a made three.

(Oh, wait, I forgot. We're still pretending not to know what he's doing with his hands on the court, and assume that he means "three", or "bulls-eye". I'm sorry.)

Outside the safe surroundings of the Pepsi Center however, Smith might want to watch himself with all that Blood stuff. Denver, as DJ Quik once famously said, is just like Compton. There is a heavy gang pressence in the city. The sports world and the Denver gang culture have crossed paths on more than one occasion. The most famous and tragic being the Darrent Williams killing.

For his own safety I hope he realizes, soon, that this buffonery, or dare I say straight up coonery, can cost him the ultimate price. No, not another appearance in a Waka Flocka Flame video (he's already got that), but his life.