While gorging myself on the NBA finals I’ve gotten accustomed to the advertising overload. Since I normally DVR anything and everything, opting to watch literally anything that we have on on-demand over any live television shows (*Author’s note: here’s looking at you, My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding) I can’t handle much in the way of advertising. I’ll look for obscure reasons to pause the T.V. (*Author’s note: “I’d better pick up the cat so I can compare his weight to this 2-liter of pop.”), just so I can fast forward through a T-Mobile Ad and a McBerry McSmoothie commercial featuring people inexplicably dancing because their food tastes so good.
Sporting events are different. They have to be enjoyed live. It’s not because we now live in an information-gorging age where, within two touch-screen pushes I can confirm the Mayan Apocalypse by finding out the sex of Snooki’s baby and discovering exactly what a dude from Nashville thinks about the whole scenario in 140 characters. That’s a piece but not the entirety of the equation.
There’s something about sports that lives in the moment. It can pull you in, yanking you right from your gravitational core, like a benign blackhole. You find yourself on the edge of the couch, standing in your living room like you’re courtside at Madison Square Garden, or gripping your Wife’s hand like you’re about to offer yourself as a hostage to a group of criminals in an act of cinematic selflessness. When I watch sports with any more than the two second uh-oh-did-Kobe-really-just-F-bomb-the-cotton-candy-guy-we-better-dump-out delay, I don’t feel that connection. That electrical current that somehow passes from arena’s to HD cameras to my TV in a jolting, wild ride seems to be missing.
For that reason, I have to watch sports live. For that reason, I have to endure commercials during the NBA finals.
Which puts me in a strange position. Here I am, watching the commercials designed for a set audience over and over. And over. There’s a unique demographic that allegedly tunes in for these kinds of things and when you’re stuck powering through the fourth Coors Light ad in 20 minutes you find yourself asking weird questions. Here was my latest of these odd lines of thinking.
If you put together a starting 5 based on the fictional, hyper-repetitive commercial characters that we see, who would be on the roster? I’ve given this (too much) thought. Here we go.
At the starting PG: Uncle Drew
If you’ve been watching the NBA finals, I’m sure you saw this one coming. Here’s what it looks like:
He’s sneaky good for an old geezer, has a nasty crossover, and can shoot from deep downtown. In short, Uncle Drew is a true baller. In his own words, he gets buckets. His only downfall is that no one actually drinks Pepsi Max. I think I speak for the masses when I say, quit f-ing around with Pepsi Max and bring back Pepsi Blue! What’s that? You don’t remember Pepsi Blue? Neither does anyone else but me. (*Author’s note: Uncle Drew is actually NBA Rookie of the Year Kyrie Irving. This ad also has doubled as my favorite commercial of the NBA finals.
At the 2-Guard: Phil Shifley
He’s a master of disguise, an expert at blending into the crowd and emerging at exactly the right moment, and he’s clearly okay with not hogging the spotlight (since the Mob is clearly trying to murder him). His eyebrows and Mark-Twain’s-illicit-love-affair–with-Colonel-Sanders hairstyle make him a white-man’s James Harden (at least in the looks department, if not on the actual court.)
The question remains: can Shifley hoop? Will he be able to knock down the open looks created by Uncle Drew’s slashing style? We can only hope.
At the Small Forward: Ice Cube
In “It Was a Good Day” Cube definitely raps about messin’ around and getting a triple double. If he’s capable of doing that on the mean streets of Compton, CA, with Jheri Curl juice staining his shooting hand and his Raiders snap-back slipping down over his eyes, what could he do in the league? (*Author’s note: I know, rap purists, he wasn’t rockin’ the Jheri when this song came out.) Sure, he’s gotten old, soft, and cornier than a bowl full of Berry Berry Kix, but can Cube still hoop? I think the best way to ask this question is, “Is he there yet?”
He can ball. He’s got that tough-guy mentality that this team needs. But is he completely insane? He’s prone to making terrible TV shows and arguing with inanimate objects. Hey, it worked for Rodman.
At Power Forward: Lieutenant Ripley
The Ads for Prometheus have been in full effect for the NBA finals this year. Here’s just a taste of what Ripley’s made of:
Wait, what’s that you say? Ripley’s not even in the newest installment of the Alien movies? F-ing A. I guess we can just start this guy from the new Batman movie:
He’s big, burly, and clearly angry as a mofo. Just the kind of post presence that most teams are looking for. The biggest question? Can he lay off the ‘roids long enough so that he can avoid a substance abuse suspension from David Stern?
At Center: Shaquille O’Neal
I know, I know. He’s washed up and porking out. Towards the end his body seemed to be held together by toothpicks, tissue paper, and pipe cleaners. But he’s still one of the best of all-time. Here’s his Buick commercial. Check out the exceedingly creepy/awkward bugeyed-and-point manuver that he pulls at the end of the commercial. I can just see the director on the set of that commercial taking a long, deeply depressed pull on a bottle of some kind of dark liquor and saying, “You know what!?! Just free-style it SHawqk. Just fressstyleit.” And the end result is right here:
In the scheme of things, this is actually only Shaq’s 3rd worst acting performance behind Kazaam and his sex tape.
FIN
Burnpoetry 
i paused the last video at 0:24. set it as my desktop. then killed myself. how am i even writing this?