From “Wet Dreamz” to hoop dreams.

Rapper J Cole is reportedly trying to make the NBA as he tries to restart the basketball career he once put on hold to pursue music.

Master P, a rapper who had a brief stint in the NBA, revealed that J Cole – whose real name is Jermaine Lamarr Cole – asked him what it takes to make the big league.

Before focusing on music, Master P – Percy Robert Miller in real life – played for the Toronto Raptors and the Charlotte Hornets in the preseason during the late 1990s.

“When I talked to J Cole, he was like, ‘You know, big dog, you did it. What do you think I would have to do to make it happen?’ I said to get one of these NBA jerseys is not going to be easy,” Master P told Complex.

After playing basketball for Terry Sanford High School, where he became a starter during his senior year, J Cole proceeded to study at the St John’s University in New York.

The “Wet Dreamz” rapper tried out for St John’s basketball team in his sophomore year as a walk-in and got called back the next day, but he decided not to show up.

“In my mind, I would have made the team. Who know what would have really happened? But I knew I was not ready for that type of commitment and that lifestyle,” J Cole told Sports Illustrated in 2013.

“That was the moment where I decided that basketball was a pipe dream. It was not what I wanted to spend my next 3 or 4 years chasing.”

But after repeatedly going “platinum with no features” and winning several music accolades – including a Grammy Award for Best Rap Song – J Cole might be going after his other dream.

In his The Players’ Tribune piece in July, J Cole bared he still thinks about his NBA aspirations.

“[A]s I approach the summit of this mountain, I still find myself staring at that other one in the distance, wondering if I can climb,” J Cole wrote.

This desire was in full display on his latest Puma commercial, where J Cole is seen shooting basketball.

For the past few years, J Cole has been working with prominent NBA trainer Chris Brickley and he has shown his improvement by consistently knocking down his jump shots.

J Cole also flaunted his hops by flushing home a two-handed alley-oop dunk off a Kevin Hart assist in the 2012 NBA All-Star Celebrity Game.

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The only caveat, though, is that J Cole is already 35 years old and several players his age have already been out of the NBA. – Rappler.com