Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Rudy Gay - The Most Interesting Man In The NBA



Remember back to the 2007-2008 NBA season. The Raptors were coming off their best regular season in franchise history. Chris Bosh was the face of the franchise and still relatively likable. Only one problem. Bosh was trailing Kevin Garnett massively in the All-Star vote. Garnett's stats weren't as good but he was playing his first year for the eventual NBA Champion Boston Celtics. The hype alone surrounding the Big 3 was enough to push Garnett into the starting lineup.
So Bosh dropped this video, which was then a pretty revolutionary marketing strategy. His votes skyrocketed but it was not enough to oust Garnett, or LeBron James for that matter, of a starting forward spot. Garnett ended up missing the game due to injury, and Bosh took his place in the starting lineup. The video worked (kind of), and Bosh earned his second consecutive All-Star start.
Memphis Grizzlies forward Rudy Gay recently put out a All-Star promotional video of his own, shown above. It parodies the Dos Equis commercials and is just as good if not better than Bosh's video two years ago. Only one problem. Gay, unlike Bosh two years earlier, doesn't deserve to be an All-Star. In fact, he's not even in the Top 10 vote-getters amongst forwards as of the last update on January 13th. It's not that he isn't a great player, but more due to the fact that he has names like Durant, Anthony, Gasol, Griffin, Duncan, and Nowitzki to compete with.
In that respect, it almost feels like a good video was wasted to fight a losing battle. Maybe next year. By then, Duncan and Nowitzki may be showing their age and Carmelo will be in the East. 

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