1) “The Showdown” (Larry Bird and Michael Jordan for McDonald’s)

There’s likely been better, funnier, and more effective commercials since starring NBA players but for a generation of fans this is the ideal basketball ad. Airing initially during the 1993 Super Bowl on NBC (who also owned the rights to the NBA at the time), it featured the legendary superstars Larry Bird and Michael Jordan engaging in a game of H-O-R-S-E to determine who gets to eat a McDonald’s Big Mac. The timing was a little unusual for Bird, who had retired a few months earlier due to lingering back issues and McDonald’s reportedly preferred to feature a then rookie Shaquille O’Neal (who could barely hit a free throw, let alone a long range trick shot). Luckily, we ended up with an iconic sequence of Bird and Jordan trading increasingly difficult shots, culminating in an attempt from the top of Chicago’s John Hancock Center. The exploits were immediately imitated by kids and adults alike across the country and eventually spawned a goofy sequel starring Charles Barkley in 1994 and an ill-fated revival with LeBron James and Dwight Howard in 2010.

https://youtu.be/_oACRt-Qp-s?si=PDjBSiOAVMc_sfU9

2) “Not a Role Model” (Charles Barkley for Nike)

During a recent profane Twitter spat with a fan, Kevin Durant invoked the controversial stance Charles Barkley had made famous nearly three decades earlier: “I am not a role model.” That it’s still a contentious argument in this day and age speaks to just how ahead of his time Barkley was in making the statement in a major television commercial. When the ad first aired in 1993, Barkley was feeling the aftermath of one of many firestorms in his time in the public eye, having recently accidentally spit on an eight-year-old fan when aiming for an adult yelling racist epithets. He had also just finished the best season of his career, earning league MVP while leading the Suns to the NBA Finals. In a starkly plain commercial, donning an unadorned grey jersey (David Stern refused to allow any NBA logos or team names to be used, as he did not condone the message), Barkley looked directly at the camera and extolled parents to be role models for their kids, rather than relying on athletes. While many applauded Barkley for the candid message, most were appalled or, at the very least, in disagreement.

3) “Impossible Is Nothing” (Gilbert Arenas for Adidas)

Lightly recruited out of high school, Arenas managed to land a scholarship at Arizona under Lute Olson but supposedly overheard a scout state that he’d play “zero minutes” at the NCAA or NBA level. This inspired him to adopt the jersey #0 for the Wildcats and later in his lengthy NBA career, which included three appearances on the All-NBA team. That possibly apocryphal story became more or less the basis for this understated Adidas spot, in which Arenas retells his adversity via art therapy. It was part of an “Impossible Is Nothing” series that Adidas launched in 2007, also featuring spots with Lionel Messi, Allyson Felix, and David Beckham. Unfortunately for Arenas, the ad came out right as his career was about to crash, starting with a major knee injury later that year, multiple aborted comebacks, and eventually an indefinite suspension for bringing a gun into the Wizards locker room.

4) “How Will You Take Over?” (Kobe Bryant for NBA2K10)

Arguably the most successful basketball video game franchise of all time, the NBA2K series turned to Kobe Bryant as its cover athlete for the first time in 2009. It was perfect timing, as the Lakers superstar was coming off his first championship without Shaquille O’Neal (who was the NBA2K cover athlete for the 2005 and 2006 editions) and seemingly at his career peak. Meanwhile, the 2K series had just surpassed the EA NBA Live games as the top selling basketball game worldwide. Though that ’08-’09 Lakers team featured another All-Star in Pau Gasol, it was still a conceived notion that Bryant basically carried them solo to the title. The 2K commercial played on that sentiment, with a solitary, computer generated Bryant fighting his way across a court packed with not just his Celtics rivals but also numerous additional All-Star opponents (Tim Duncan, Chris Bosh, and Amare Stoudemire are highlighted, though notably not LeBron James), t-shirt gun-toting mascots, and even an overzealous popcorn vendor. Punctuated by the golden age hip-hop classic “Don’t Sweat the Technique,” the memorable ad was meant to tease the new “My Player” mode, which has since become a staple of the series.

5) “Freestyle” (Vince Carter, Jason Williams, Baron Davis, and others for Nike)

In late 2000, Nike approached esteemed music video director Paul Hunter with a basic concept for a commercial: mix a hip-hop beat with ambient basketball noise. What he produced was 60 seconds of performance art which first aired during the 2001 All-Star Weekend but still resonates over two decades later with any basketball fans old enough to remember seeing it. Featuring numerous NBA players alongside street ballers, the ad uses the legendary beat of “Planet Rock” by Afrika Bambaataa and interpolates it with the sounds of basketballs bouncing and whooshing, and, of course, squeaking Nike sneakers, all provided by players displaying a bevy of dribbling and passing tricks. NBA players in the spot included then rising stars Jason Williams, Baron Davis, Lamar Odom, Darius Miles and Rasheed Wallace (who, true to his reputation, pushes a guy) but the centerpiece was Vince Carter, who was fresh off his breathtaking Slam Dunk Contest performance.

https://youtu.be/SRKg7gsz7gY?si=ENGxDUESUww8uRtt

6) “Be Like Mike” (Michael Jordan for Gatorade)

One of the most famous songs in advertising history was born out of necessity and a timeline crunch. When Gatorade finally landed Michael Jordan as a spokesperson in 1991 after years of trying, their original concept involved the song “I Wanna Be Like You” from the film “The Jungle Book” but they couldn’t clear the rights with Disney. With just a few days left to finish the concept, they scrambled to instead write an original song, eventually landing on the now iconic “Be Like Mike.” Over the bouncy, vaguely “world music” tune, the commercial featured various kids (most of whom were the children of executives on the board of Quaker, which owned Gatorade at the time) and adults attempting to imitate some of Jordan’s trademark moves, including in some cases alongside the Bulls superstar himself. This was interspersed with some of Jordan’s signature highlights, including “The Shot.” It wasn’t particularly groundbreaking and it supposedly did little to improve Gatorade’s sales but the commercial became seminal all the same, to the point that the phrase “like Mike” has infiltrated the American English language lexicon as meaning an imitation of greatness.

7) “Lil’ Penny” (Penny Hardaway for Nike) 
8) “MVPuppets” (LeBron James and Kobe Bryant for Nike)

For whatever reason, mixing NBA superstars with puppets has been a winning advertising strategy. Lil’ Penny actually started off as a more serious concept, with an idea for a commercial where the miniature Penny Hardaway doppelganger would play a game of one-on-one against a Michael Jordan puppet. But it ultimately found success as a comedic vehicle, memorably voiced by Chris Rock. In a series that started early in the ’95-’96 season and eventually lasted for years, the Lil’ Penny doll served as a brash, boastful alter ego for the more reserved and understated Hardaway. While the early ads stayed centered around Hardaway and his new signature “Air Penny” line, things quickly escalated into absurdist puppet antics, especially its obsession with Tyra Banks (who made frequent cameos). This culminated in a wild Super Bowl ad in 1997, where Lil’ Penny hosted a Super Bowl party with a guest list that included George Gervin, Dominique Wilkins, David Robinson, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Tiger Woods, Michael Johnson, Sergei Federov, Barry Sanders, Ken Griffey, Jr., Stevie Wonder, Spike Lee, and, of course, Banks as co-host. Nike went back to the puppet well in 2008, upgrading the marionette style of Lil’ Penny for more Henson-esque versions of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. Over the course of the ’08-’09 and ’09-’10 seasons, the height of those two superstars dominating the NBA, the ads envisioned the two players living together in puppet form, voiced by David Allen Grier and Kenan Thompson. The series hit either a high point or low point, depending on your perspective, on Christmas of 2009, when the LeBron and Kobe puppets teamed up with Santa (voiced by rap god KRS-One) to defeat his reindeer in a pick-up game. The Cavaliers and Lakers faced off on Christmas Day when that commercial aired, with James leading Cleveland to an easy victory, but Bryant got the last laugh at the end of the season, earning his fifth championship.

9) “Blake Griffin Time Travels” (Blake Griffin for Kia)

While he lacks the accolades and major star power of fellow TV commercial icons like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James, Griffin made up for it in his easy charisma. In an offbeat choice matching his quirky personality, Griffin’s main sponsorship was not a shoe or sports drink company but Kia. In his most memorable line of ads for the Korean car manufacturer, Griffin utilizes the Optima to travel back in time, where he dispenses life advice to younger versions of himself while also promoting the sedan’s virtues. The most amusing moments come in Griffin’s willingness to deploy self-deprecating humor, including jokes at the expense of his poor free throw shooting (which vastly improved later in his career) and his over reliance on dunks. Of course, his main promotional occasion for Kia came not during the commercial break but in the 2011 All-Star Slam Dunk Contest, where Griffin dunked over an Optima in a physically impressive display that was nonetheless crass synergy.

10) “Fun Police” (Kevin Garnett, Gary Payton, Tim Hardaway, and others for Nike)

Thanks to the inevitability of the Michael Jordan Bulls dynasty, the slow down defensive mugging of the Knicks and Heat, and an aging cadre of superstars, the NBA could certainly be accused of lacking pure joy in the late ’90s. Nike played on this notion in a series of commercials featuring the “Fun Police,” a group of young stars attempting to return some amusement to the game. Garnett, still just 21 years old at the time, was the connective tissue across the ads that ran during the ’97-’98 season and also starred Payton, Hardaway, Stephon Marbury, Alonzo Mourning, Jason Kidd, and Damon Stoudamire, amongst others. There was an interesting racial dynamic subtext to the commercials, which featured mostly Black players pushing their convivial agenda on a mostly white audience of fans, coaches, amateur players, and referees (this is all the more trenchant in retrospect when you re-watch the ad with a Donald Trump cameo). While the Fun Police were certainly well meaning, it wasn’t until the NBA cracked down on hand checking a few years later that the league truly evolved into a more entertaining product.

11) “Godzilla vs Charles Barkley” (Charles Barkley for Nike)

Michael Jordan may have been the most marketable star in NBA history but Barkley was the ultimate commercial muse. Who else could be directed by David Fincher in a parody of Barber of Seville? Or sell the line “anything else would be uncivilized” while riding on a horse? Barkley’s most famous spot was his “I am not a role model” speech but his most clever and endearing was his 1992 battle with Godzilla. In fact, this commercial was so hyped that Nike felt the need to create a trailer for it, which aired during the All-Star Game. Filmed during his final season with the 76ers, the ad featured the pugnacious superstar doing battle with the larger-than-life kaiju in a game of one-on-one on the streets of Tokyo. Produced by Industrial Light and Magic (a.k.a. the people who made Star Wars), it has surprisingly solid special effects and the hilarious visual gag of Godzilla donning a Kareem-esque pair of goggles. Though the commercial itself was brief, an extended comic book version of the battle was released a year later.

12) “Grandmama” (Larry Johnson for Converse)

They typically skirt around the concept but most shoe commercials with NBA players are essentially attempting to sell you on the idea that wearing said shoes is all it takes for you, an Average Joe, to hoop like a pro superstar. Converse got literal with the premise in 1991 in an ad campaign that started with Johnson staring into the camera and explaining his new shoes were so fast and light “my grandmama could whoop you in them.” Cut to Johnson, decked out in a flowery dress, pill box hat, and pearl necklace, throwing down a thunderous dunk. Thus began his second persona as “grandmama,” which rivals Lil’ Penny and Mars Blackmon as the most popular and enduring basketball ad alter ego of the ’90s. When Johnson first inked a deal with Converse as a rookie for the Hornets, he was sold on a pitched commercial concept where he would star alongside Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Instead, they came back with the “grandmama” character and the young star was game, leading to a series of increasingly odd and entertaining ads and eventually a guest spot on Family Matters, teaming up in a street ball tournament with Urkel.

13) “It’s Gotta Be the Shoes” (Michael Jordan for Air Jordans)

In his 1986 directorial debut “She’s Gotta Have It,” Spike Lee cast himself as Mars Blackmon, a bike messenger overly obsessed with his Air Jordans. Amongst the film’s fans was a pair of Nike executives, who approached Lee to revive the character soon after in a series of Air Jordan ads. Filmed in black-and-white, just like the film that inspired them, Nike’s “It’s Gotta Be the Shoes” campaign started during the 1988 All-Star Weekend, when Jordan earned the Slam Dunk Contest crown and All-Star Game MVP on his home court in Chicago. Lee’s memorable phrase “it’s gotta be the shoes” became an instant part of the American lexicon, as the ads were exceedingly popular due in large part to the easy chemistry between Jordan and Lee, despite the latter obviously being a super fan of one of the former’s biggest rivals, the Knicks. The ad campaign lasted long enough for an entry that poked fun at Jordan’s brief baseball career, featuring cameos from Willie Mays, Ken Griffey, and Bill Buckner.

14) “Don’t Fake the Funk” (Shaquille O’Neal for Reebok)

It seems quaint in the league’s current landscape but when he joined the NBA in 1992, O’Neal was seen as the latest iteration in a through line of center domination. He turned out to be arguably the last of that fraternity, of which several members appeared in this Reebok ad to welcome him into the club. Another shocking consideration in retrospect: a rookie O’Neal was unable to secure a signature shoe deal from Nike, which led him into the arms of Reebok. The end result was the Shaq Attaq I (with pump action) and this iconic commercial, which debuted during the 1993 Super Bowl and featured cameos from Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, and Wilt Chamberlain. Lasting only about 30 seconds (which meant it cost nearly a million dollars to air it), O’Neal, Abdul-Jabbar, and Russell got only brief dialogue, while Walton and Chamberlain remained mute (Chamberlain does provide the highlight of the ad though, wordlessly holding up a broom and dustpan after watching Shaq destroy a backboard on a thunderous dunk). O’Neal’s opening line is what most remember about the commercial, providing the big man club password “don’t fake the funk on a nasty dunk.”

15) “Answer V” (Allen Iverson for Reebok)

With his killer crossover, lightning fast agility, and singular sense of style, Iverson was ready made for television. Another asset that defined his career was his convergence with hip-hop culture, both in his own recordings and his relationships with and influences on star rappers. One such rapport was with the legendary Jadakiss, a lifelong NBA super fan who was able to set aside his Knicks allegiance to star in two commercials with Iverson in 2001 and 2002, at the height of the 76ers’ career. In the original, more iconic version for the Reebok Answer V, Jadakiss raps over a solid beat from producers Trackmasters (famous for their work with Nas, The Notorious B.I.G., LL Cool J, and numerous others), while Iverson puts on a dazzling display of dunks, crossovers, and play making tricks. It was a watershed moment in the NBA-hip-hop concomitance.

16) “Hare Jordan” (Michael Jordan for Air Jordans)
17) “Uncle Drew” (Kyrie Irving for Pepsi)

Unless they were old enough to catch the original in theaters, the odds are most viewers of Michael Jordan’s 1996 “Space Jam” film and LeBron James’ 2021 sequel are unaware it all started with a Nike commercial. Appropriately titled “Hare Jordan,” that ad first aired during the 1992 Super Bowl and featured the Bulls superstar participating in animated antics alongside Bugs Bunny (as well as other Looney Tunes like Marvin the Martian and Porky Pig). It was the brainchild of a Nike executive who wisely had narrowed in on Jordan’s straight man skills opposite Spike Lee in the Mars Blackmon ads (see #13 above), and, unsurprisingly, was a massive hit. Warner Brothers capitalized on it as soon as possible, bringing in the commercial’s director, Joe Pytka, to helm Jordan-Looney Tunes crossover “Space Jam.” It was released in 1996 and despite being panned by critics, was a massive hit with a nostalgic following it coasts on to this day, eventually leading to that inevitable sequel. 20 years after “Space Jam” and three years before “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” we got the film adaption of a basketball-themed commercial that no one was asking for. The “Uncle Drew” ads were centered around Irving schooling street ball competitors in prosthetics and makeup that transformed him into an old man. The idea was explained in the tagline that PepsiMax was a “zero calorie cola in disguise.” Filmed more like cinema verite than a commercial, the series of ads gained traction on YouTube and other burgeoning video sharing sites and eventually spawned that 2018 film, wherein Irving gets the old gang back together, including appearances in heavy prosthetics from Shaquille O’Neal, Reggie Miller, Chris Webber, Nate Robinson, and Lisa Leslie. It was produced by Pepsi, natch, but oddly featured a lot more product placement for Nike (who also sponsors Irving). One interesting footnote about the otherwise forgettable film is that Irving was on set filming when he was notified about being traded from the Cavaliers to the Celtics.

18) “What Should I Do?” (LeBron James for Nike)

When LeBron James left the Cavaliers for the Heat in 2010, it rendered a large portion of fans upset at the superstar for the perceived insult, and not just in Cleveland but across the country. This may have seemed like no big deal in the abstract, after all the Yankees are arguably the most hated franchise in all of U.S. professional sports and they’ve remained plenty successful. But there was a business decision aspect to this and one of the most at-risk stakeholders was Nike, which had just extended its pricy contract with James during the ’09-’10 season. The shoe company launched a geniality tour, starting with this commercial that was released just as James’ tenure with the Heat was getting started. In the ad, James repeatedly converses with the camera, querying fans “what should I do?” a question that stood in for the implied statement “hey, wouldn’t you have done the same thing and taken your talents to South Beach?” It’s difficult to say just how many people were swayed by the ad but James did remain the most popular NBA player in the world throughout his time in Miami and in 2014, after he returned to Cleveland, Nike signed him to a lifetime contract. 

https://youtu.be/ZQ6nKET2Yho?si=YDG_jjD3-T1bqLhf

19) “Weapon Rap” (Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and others for Converse)

Move over, “Super Bowl Shuffle.” You’re not the only embarrassing rapping athlete video in town. In 1986, to promote the release of the Weapon, their new, improved leather basketball shoe, Converse convened its six biggest NBA brand ambassadors to do what can only charitably be called rapping. While prominently displaying Weapon varietals with colorways matching their jerseys (this was a major feature of the Weapon’s popularity), Isiah Thomas, Kevin McHale, Bernard King, Mark Aguirre, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird took turns dropping bars in the “Weapon Rap.” In a shocking twist, McHale is arguably the only one who stays on beat but it’s Bird who gets the real kicker, exhibiting his MVP trophy at the end in the ultimate mic drop. While Converse would soon after be overwhelmed by Nike in the NBA sneaker market, this commercial still lives on as a brief hit of serotonin nostalgia for any ’80s NBA fan.