If you want to play a game of basketball without worrying that a tattoo-faced rapper will threaten to kill you with a gun, now's the time to do it.

Because The Game, hip-hop's leading proponent of punching men to the ground during friendly basketball matches and then threatening to kill them with a gun, has started his 60-day jail sentence in LA.

However, it looks like The Game will get an easier ride than most other prisoners, because his jail sentence will be marked by the cushy segregation that all other celebrity inmates receive. Which is ironic, because we wouldn't be able to recognise The Game if he held a gun to our head.

OK, maybe if he held an actual gun to our head…

The Game isn't just a rapper, he's a role-model. Admittedly he'd be a bigger role-model if people had actually listened to any of his music in the last two years, but The Game should still think carefully about how his actions influence the young. Otherwise next thing you know there'll be gangs of kids all wearing masks in shopping malls and hurting policemen's feelings willy-nilly. And that way chaos lies.

But, worse, kids could copy The Game and start threatening their peers with guns during innocent sporting events. Imagine if little Timmy from across the street was arrested for pulling a glock on a six-year-old girl during the climax of a tense school sports day egg and spoon race. Because when that inevitably happens, it'll all be The Game's fault.

Substitute 'egg and spoon race' for 'basketball match' and 'six-year-old girl' for 'some bloke' and you're pretty close to imagining what The Game did last year. By getting arrested for punching a competitor in the face, running to fetch a gun from his car and then threatening to kill him, The Game got himself in more trouble than he could have ever wished for.

Last month The Game was sentenced to 60 days in jail for the incident and, on Sunday, he showed up to start his sentence, as E! Online reports:

The "How We Do" hip-hopster reported to Los Angeles' Twin Towers Correctional Facility Sunday night to begin serving a 60-day sentence after pleading no contest last month to whipping out a gun during a schoolyard pickup basketball game last February. According to TMZ, The Game will do his time in the joint in an isolated cell segregated from the general prison population.

However, as everybody knows, when a celebrity gets sent to jail in Los Angeles they never fully serve out their time. It's expected that The Game will only serve half of his sentence and will be released 30 days into his term. Sounds cushy, we know, but how would you like spending Easter, St Patrick's Day and International Women's Day locked in a cell? The Game will experience a hitherto unknown emotional challenge trying to get through that without weeping like a baby.  

But listen, now that The Game is in jail and Foxy Brown is in jail, literally the only rappers not in jail at the moment are two of the Fat Boys and MC Miker G. Literally.

Read more:

The Game Goes to Jail - E! Online