Mon Oct 25 12:30pm PDT
Video: LeBron James’ new Nike ad
By Kelly Dwyer
Like Tiger Woods, LeBron James(notes) is turning to Nike to help rehabilitate his image. Here’s the latest Nike commercial, which was just released. And it’s not bad.
The thing that hits, before anything else, is that LeBron James probably needs to be listening to the executives and advisors and creative elements at Nike much more than he needs to be listening to his hangers-on-turned-representatives at LRMR. Way more.
Photos: See LeBron in action as a member of the Heat
If you’re keeping count, there’s a Decision reference in that ad, a nod to the time he left his local high school for a stronger program in Akron as a teen, a Charles Barkley (“hi Chuck!”) reference, a “Miami Vice” redux with Don Johnson in tow (what, Nike could meet Philip Michael Thomas’ demands?), and James also gets to dress up like a cowboy, a beatnik, and a construction worker. And then he tries to get us to feel sorry for him because we judged him by our own set of values this summer.
LeBron? You still screwed up. You did the right thing going to the better team and taking less money to do it, but you completely and utterly blew the execution behind the whole move. You listened to your friends (because, as the ad states, “they’re [your] friends”), and your friends led you astray. This is pretty much how it’s always gone for every narcissist, in whatever forum, that surrounded themselves with yes-men.
But if there truly are second acts in American life, then this is a good start. Nice shoes, too.
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