Enough with this Ad Campaign

This fall, the NBA unveiled its new ad campaign "Where Amazing Happens." Surprisingly, this ad campaign was amazing. It really captured quite a few moments from the previous season, such as the Nash bloody nose, that demonstrated why the people who watch the NBA love it. Also, the music ruled.

However, this campaign is entering its last stages, by which I mean I want to bludgeon it to death with a chair. This isn't just a matter of the ad becoming overrun ala "This is Our Country." This has a lot more to do with the choice of what qualifies as amazing. Even more specifically, the pimping and judgments about players made by the ads.

We'll start off with the least offensive out of all of them: The Nowitzki one. (Ironically it just came on while I've been writing the post)

I have no serious gripes on a hypothetical level with this one. Nowitzki is the reigning MVP, albeit probably the most disgraced one in recent memory. I mean, the MVP got knocked out of the playoffs by the eighth seed in the first round. And, part of that goes to the ad itself. One of the cards reads "Where I'll be scoring now happens." If that series taught us anything, it's that Dirk doesn't have that mode on him, especially against quicker players. Like I said, it's not the worst one and it makes sense to promote the MVP, but anyone that watches the league should be fairly offended by the wishful thinking of the commercial about Dirk's one on one ability.

The second ad is more offensive and it goes to the evaluation of the players. As funny as it would be to have an ad calling out Vince Carter for being a bitch or Kyle Korver being a little girl (Where acting like a ninny happens), the league shouldn't really be running ads calling out players or arbitrarily assigning players the moniker of "help."

The ad that drives me nuts here is a newer one. I hadn't seen it until tonight but there's a card with a picture of Lebron with Ben Wallace and it says "When Help Has Arrived Happens." You know what? Fuck you whoever wrote that card. I mean, it's one thing for sports columnists and bloggers evaluate trades. It's entirely another for the league to do it. This is the league saying "Man did Larry Hughes suck." While that is entirely true. I don't think the league offices should really be uttering those statements. Especially since Stern threw a hissy fit last year when Bill Simmons asked him about the tanking at the end of last season. "Do you want the commissioners office to tell coaches who to play?" No David, we don't. However, I don't see how throwing players under the bus in a league paid for ad is really that much different. Your league is telling teams which players are good and which aren't. There isn't any forcing of playing time, but the corporate evaluation is pretty disturbing.

This leads us to the biggest offender out of the bunch: The Boston Commercial. It's thematically different than the other commercials with different music and it forgoes the Where Amazing happens cards. However, the entire commercial is playing up how great it is that the Celtics are good again. This is an even greater insult given that we've already put up with months of these assholes. I mean, I understand promoting teams when there's a nationally televised game. I especially recognize placing good teams in nationally televised games because the league benefits from good product being on TV. That being said, linking your league's ad campaign to one team like that is pretty damn offputting to fans of the other thirty-one teams. Especially when it means that Massholes are happy. I realize that the Celtics are a storied franchise, but I don't think a sport necessarily suffers when some of the more storied franchises suffer. The fact that their back just means the bandwagon fans in Massachusetts are happy. The fact that they're back means the rest of the teams have one more good team to worry about. I fail to see why we should be happy about this. And I dont' think the league is smart for playing favorites and shoving this down our throats.