This is an excellent infographic from bdon.org that juxtaposes the number of times each NBA superstar was name-dropped on a hip-hop track in a year and compares it to the number of points that player scored that season. There's a whole host of fascinating information on here and speaks a lot to a player's relevance—Yao Ming, for example, has grabbed himself 35 lifetime mentions, but peaked hip-hop-wise in 2007 with six and plummeted to one and two in the past two years respectively. Compare that to Michael Jordan, whose last year in the league was 2003 but whose mentions have skyrocketed in recent years, peaking with 74 name drops in 2012 (he also benefits from mentions of his shoes, but it's safe to say he'd still be leading the pack regardless). Kobe, meanwhile, has been on an overall decline scoring-wise since his peak in the 2005-2006 season, but his best year in terms of name name drops didn't come until 2010 when he hit 24. And LeBron, despite being the reigning King of the Court, hit his highest year with 38 in 2011, perhaps spurred on by The Decision and his subsequent Miami experiment.

The site also includes the lyric in question for every single name drop, which is exhaustive in and of itself. Check it out here, if you've got a couple hours to spare.

[via Deadspin]

More From XXL