The Best Basketball-Themed TV Advertisements of All Time
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by user Wade Garrett
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My own personal top 10:
1. Larry and Michael
Larry Bird challenges Michael Jordan to a shootout with Michael's Big Mac and french fries going to the winner.
2. Garnett and Maurbury:Tastefully Done
In hindsight, its hard to believe that this video ever actually happened, let alone made it onto TV. The entire ad is funny, but KG absolutely nails the wink-and-nod at the end.
3. Charles Barkley: Not a Role Model
In my view, no advertisement defined its subject moreso than this one. Charles Barkley had been around for years, but this ad made him Charles Barkley
4. Jordan and Spike Lee: Mars Blackmon
These ads launched Michael Jordan as a celebrity pitchman, and he went on to have the greatest endorsement career of all-time, so why isn't this advertisement #1? Michael went on to do so many ads that its hard to pick any single one and say that it stands out as being substantially better than the others. Also, discovering Jordan as a spokesperson is a little like DeSoto discovering the Mississippi - sooner rather than later somebody else would have discovered it anyway.
5. Michael Jordan:Like Mike
Its basically impossible to dislike this ad. See #4 for the reason I don't have it ranked higher.
6. Anfernee Hardaway and Chris Rock: Lil Penny
The Secret Service couldn't guard me" is still the greatest piece of self-promoting trash talk I've ever heard in my life. The other Lil Penny ads share this spot in a five or six-way tie.
7. Gheorghe Muresan: Cologne
Muresan had a body built for physical expression; its a shame that it wasn't also built for the rigors of an NBA basketball season. His health problems aren't a laughing matter, especially considering the medical issues that most men of his enormous (7'6") height have to endure, but his advertisements are.
8. Michael Jordan: Let Your Game Speak
It still brings an enormous smile to my face after almost 10 years.
9. Shaquille O'Neal - Nasty Dunk
I love the cameos from Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Russell's presence alone is enough to make it cool, but Bill Walton, eerily resembling Judge Reinhold, steals the scene with his little "let's see what you've got" shrug.
10. Allen Iverson: The Slow Spin
I was a white high school basketball player in 1997, and as such I can promise you that EVERYBODY and their brother spent about three months trying to learn how to do this. None of us being Allen Iverson, we failed.
Wade Garrett lives in Brooklyn. He blogs at http://www.commonsensedancing.com/
