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[h1]Kobe and LeBron Empty Chambers for Nike[/h1]
1/29/2010 3:52 PM ET By Bethlehem Shoals
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Guns.They walk among us. They end lives and protect families. And recently,they've been the latest reason for people to say they'll never watchanother NBA game.
Sonaturally, Nike -- the don of all basketball gear-makers -- would pickthis week to run a print campaign that features the game's two biggeststars alongside gun-related lingo. In what has to be the worst timingin the history of sports advertising, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James willappear in important national magazines casually referring to theirsport, and themselves, in terms ripped from the sinister world offirearms.
That sound you heard was a million intelligentprofessionals slapping themselves in the forehead and wishing printmedia could move as fast as the internet.
But wait, it getsworse. They just had to go and accidentally use the one term mostreliably associated with the long national nightmare that wasWizardsgate. From ESPN.com:
Needlessto say, this is an absolutely terrible idea, and you have to assumethat if there were any way to avoid this hitting stands, it wouldn'tbe. No one in any position to decide anything, even what kind of icecream they feed the dogs at NASA, would let this ad go through in thiscurrent climate. I would encourage Nike to send little kids out theintercept and destroy every issue containing these advertisements, lestits good name and its two of its most valuable brands not be, ummm,caught in the crossfire.
In 2004, Kevin Garnettrattled off every weapon known to man as an expression of badness. Hehad to apologize, but it was so blatantly fantastic, even exhilarating,that people got over it and eventually it landed in the Hall of KG Lore:
However, only a year earlier, Kellen Winslow delivered an extended riffon how football was like war and he was a soldier. That one offendedeveryone. Probably because our nation was at war, and football is asAmerican as our nation, and Winslow came off as a clueless kidconfusing metaphor with reality. When, because football is so American,reality was a little too close for comfort.
Garnett? That wasthe NBA's best quote, known for his intensity and excesscompetitiveness, getting carried away in the heat of . . . wait, Ican't say "battle," right? But Garnett wasn't a coroporation, was knownto be a little crazy, and didn't make these statements when the lastthing the league wanted was for anyone associated with it to show up inpublic referring to his (metaphorical) chambered rounds. Or in Kobe'scase, lack thereof.
Oh, and it's worth stressing that no twoplayers have more tightly-controlled images than Bron and Kobe. Whichshould also make you realize that, as recently as whenever this ad washatched and put into motion, this level of gun-talk was consideredacceptable. Now, they might as well be endorsing universal health care.
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1/29/2010 3:52 PM ET By Bethlehem Shoals
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- Bethlehem Shoals
- Bethlehem Shoals is an NBA blogger for FanHouse
Sonaturally, Nike -- the don of all basketball gear-makers -- would pickthis week to run a print campaign that features the game's two biggeststars alongside gun-related lingo. In what has to be the worst timingin the history of sports advertising, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James willappear in important national magazines casually referring to theirsport, and themselves, in terms ripped from the sinister world offirearms.
That sound you heard was a million intelligentprofessionals slapping themselves in the forehead and wishing printmedia could move as fast as the internet.
But wait, it getsworse. They just had to go and accidentally use the one term mostreliably associated with the long national nightmare that wasWizardsgate. From ESPN.com:
Needlessto say, this is an absolutely terrible idea, and you have to assumethat if there were any way to avoid this hitting stands, it wouldn'tbe. No one in any position to decide anything, even what kind of icecream they feed the dogs at NASA, would let this ad go through in thiscurrent climate. I would encourage Nike to send little kids out theintercept and destroy every issue containing these advertisements, lestits good name and its two of its most valuable brands not be, ummm,caught in the crossfire.
In 2004, Kevin Garnettrattled off every weapon known to man as an expression of badness. Hehad to apologize, but it was so blatantly fantastic, even exhilarating,that people got over it and eventually it landed in the Hall of KG Lore:
However, only a year earlier, Kellen Winslow delivered an extended riffon how football was like war and he was a soldier. That one offendedeveryone. Probably because our nation was at war, and football is asAmerican as our nation, and Winslow came off as a clueless kidconfusing metaphor with reality. When, because football is so American,reality was a little too close for comfort.
Garnett? That wasthe NBA's best quote, known for his intensity and excesscompetitiveness, getting carried away in the heat of . . . wait, Ican't say "battle," right? But Garnett wasn't a coroporation, was knownto be a little crazy, and didn't make these statements when the lastthing the league wanted was for anyone associated with it to show up inpublic referring to his (metaphorical) chambered rounds. Or in Kobe'scase, lack thereof.
Oh, and it's worth stressing that no twoplayers have more tightly-controlled images than Bron and Kobe. Whichshould also make you realize that, as recently as whenever this ad washatched and put into motion, this level of gun-talk was consideredacceptable. Now, they might as well be endorsing universal health care.
