The NBA's New Image

The NBA's marketing department used to be the envy of the sports world. Right now? Not so much. Check out the latest campaign -- featuring the Pussycat Dolls of all people.



Where do I begin? I could point out that the song is "holy monkey, mute the damned TV" bad... but that just scratches the surface. Consider:

• For a league that's gotten tons of bad press for hooker, groupie and stripper-related reasons over the years, is a glorified burlesque act really who you want to feature in a marketing campaign? Doesn't anyone remember the Gold Club? Or Shawn Kemp's 19 kids?


• The sexxxed-up jersey look has been done to death -- most recently by Joumana Kidd. Is she really a person we want to emulate right now?
• And who decided it was a good idea to put a half-naked woman in a Kobe Bryant jersey?!? Wouldn't the Association be better off if fans never spent any time thinking about Kobe and women?

For added fun... as SI's Lang Whitaker points out, the lead pussycat is wearing an out-of-date Kobe jersey. The Mamba switched from number 8 to number 24 this season.

C'mon, NBA marketing department. You can do better.

New Toy from NBA.com

Yeah yeah, it's been a while. I was busy unwrapping my Christmas present from NBA.com. Check it out:


NBA.com offers these little flash widgets on every player page -- just grab the code and you can embed a little Dikembe Mutombo in your blog or a little Smush Parker on your MySpace page. (And who doesn't want some Smush on their MySpace page?) We're using Dikembe as the example in honor of the fact that he passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and moved into second place on the all-time list for blocks last night. The big fella has now wagged his finger 3,191 times. That's a whole lot of "get out of my kitchen."