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- Feb 14, 2007
found this interesting article on azcentral.com, the local paper here in the phoenix area.. pretty good read and funny idea.. obviously it would never happen, but it is pretty creative and I would love to have some basketball no matter how it went down..
Back in August, Knicks beat writer Alan Hahn suggested that maybe major shoe brands Nike and Adidas could join forces to "feed the hunger" for hoops by staging exhibition games in Las Vegas between players who endorse each of the sneaker brands.
Of course, back in August musing over this sort of thing was just a good way to pass the time.
However, now that NBA Commissioner David Stern has declared Tuesday as the last day - seriously, he isn't kidding this time - that an agreement can be reached before the league will have to cancel its big Christmas Day tripleheader and likely lose most of the season, maybe it's time to re-examine Hahn's idea.
In fact, we'd take it a step further if the NBA actually ends up cancelling the entire season.
Why not get all the shoe brands involved?
The website hoopshype.com maintains a list of all the sneaker brands and the players who endorse them.
One could easily come up with 12 teams or more, all of them stocked with at least a few All-Stars and with plenty of players left over to rotate onto the rosters, which could range from 15 to 20 players.
Nike, of course, is the monster.
There are 188 NBA players listed as Nike endorsers, including 45 former All-Stars.
We would suggest breaking them up into seven teams.
There are 19 players, including Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony, who endorse Nike's Jordan Brand shoes. Of the 19, 10 are former All-Stars. So that's a pretty good team.
Megastars Kobe Bryant and LeBron James each has his own signature kicks. So form a Team Kobe and a Team King.
There are 24 foreign-born players endorsing Nike, and one other who wears them although he's got an endorsement deal with Luyou, a Chinese company.
That would be Steve Nash.
Since he plays in low-cut Nike shoes, wouldn't it be cool to team him up with Dirk Nowitzki on the World Team? Yes it would.
That still leaves more than 100 players who could be divided up by the Nike model they wear.
Adidas is the next largest shoe company among NBA players with 58, including eight All-Stars. Derrick Rose and Dwight Howard each have their own signature shoes, so we would build Team Rose and Team Superman around them. There still would be plenty of players remaining to form Team Adidas.
We would form another team from the three Chinese-based shoe companies: Li Ning, Anta and Peak.
There are 20 players, including four former All-Stars wearing those shoes including Kevin Garnett, Jason Kidd, Jason Richardson and Baron Davis.
OK, Shaq is also among them, but he might come out of retirement for this.
Hey, maybe Yao Ming, now owner of the Shanghai Sharks, which are sponsored in part by Li Ning, could be the coach.
That would ensure lots of Internet viewers.
Converse and Reebok could team up for Team C/R with 19 players and two former All-Stars. We would also allow Allen Iverson to do some barnstorming.
And finally we would take all of the players representing smaller companies and combine them. Among the companies with one to three NBA players under endorsement deals are Under Armour, The League, New Balance, Le Coq Sportif, Ball'n, And1 and Above the Rim.
We might even have to allow Stephon Marbury to join up with his Starbury brand just to make sure we have enough for Team Outlet.
Let the shoe wars begin!
Back in August, Knicks beat writer Alan Hahn suggested that maybe major shoe brands Nike and Adidas could join forces to "feed the hunger" for hoops by staging exhibition games in Las Vegas between players who endorse each of the sneaker brands.
Of course, back in August musing over this sort of thing was just a good way to pass the time.
However, now that NBA Commissioner David Stern has declared Tuesday as the last day - seriously, he isn't kidding this time - that an agreement can be reached before the league will have to cancel its big Christmas Day tripleheader and likely lose most of the season, maybe it's time to re-examine Hahn's idea.
In fact, we'd take it a step further if the NBA actually ends up cancelling the entire season.
Why not get all the shoe brands involved?
The website hoopshype.com maintains a list of all the sneaker brands and the players who endorse them.
One could easily come up with 12 teams or more, all of them stocked with at least a few All-Stars and with plenty of players left over to rotate onto the rosters, which could range from 15 to 20 players.
Nike, of course, is the monster.
There are 188 NBA players listed as Nike endorsers, including 45 former All-Stars.
We would suggest breaking them up into seven teams.
There are 19 players, including Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony, who endorse Nike's Jordan Brand shoes. Of the 19, 10 are former All-Stars. So that's a pretty good team.
Megastars Kobe Bryant and LeBron James each has his own signature kicks. So form a Team Kobe and a Team King.
There are 24 foreign-born players endorsing Nike, and one other who wears them although he's got an endorsement deal with Luyou, a Chinese company.
That would be Steve Nash.
Since he plays in low-cut Nike shoes, wouldn't it be cool to team him up with Dirk Nowitzki on the World Team? Yes it would.
That still leaves more than 100 players who could be divided up by the Nike model they wear.
Adidas is the next largest shoe company among NBA players with 58, including eight All-Stars. Derrick Rose and Dwight Howard each have their own signature shoes, so we would build Team Rose and Team Superman around them. There still would be plenty of players remaining to form Team Adidas.
We would form another team from the three Chinese-based shoe companies: Li Ning, Anta and Peak.
There are 20 players, including four former All-Stars wearing those shoes including Kevin Garnett, Jason Kidd, Jason Richardson and Baron Davis.
OK, Shaq is also among them, but he might come out of retirement for this.
Hey, maybe Yao Ming, now owner of the Shanghai Sharks, which are sponsored in part by Li Ning, could be the coach.
That would ensure lots of Internet viewers.
Converse and Reebok could team up for Team C/R with 19 players and two former All-Stars. We would also allow Allen Iverson to do some barnstorming.
And finally we would take all of the players representing smaller companies and combine them. Among the companies with one to three NBA players under endorsement deals are Under Armour, The League, New Balance, Le Coq Sportif, Ball'n, And1 and Above the Rim.
We might even have to allow Stephon Marbury to join up with his Starbury brand just to make sure we have enough for Team Outlet.
Let the shoe wars begin!
