New NBA Adidas Commercials

I’m more of a Nike guy when it comes to basketball shoes, but the latest ad campaign from Adidas is pretty cool. In fact, it was pretty awesome when they featured UCLA’s SAC gym for their 2008 commercials (I blogged about it before).

This first “group” video is pretty sick… the multi-layered player effect is so cool. Derrick Rose’s between-the-legs dunk? Ridiculous.

Nice T-Mac cameo w/ his new jersey #3. Haha.

I also found the Josh Smith vs Dwight Howard manikin to be pretty funny… sort of lame, but pretty funny.

Check out other versions w/ Rose, Chauncey Billups, Tim Duncan, Michael Beasley, etc…

This is where we play

I play basketball in the summer with friends at UCLA’s Student Activities Center (aka SAC), on the top floor dubbed the “Men’s Gym.” This summer, we played almost twice a week during the night–2 on 2, 3 on 3, 4 on 4, 5 on 5… everything. We went play on Sunday mornings, too. Because everybody crowds the Wooden Center courts, it’s really nice to get in some runs at an empty gym at SAC, with just your really good friends–guys that cut backdoor when you want them to, guys that you know on the court so well, you know their sweet spots, you know their tendencies, and you can talk trash and give compliments at the same time.

Then, when we’re done, a bunch of us go out to eat together.

It’s kind of like this:

Ok, maybe not exactly like that… but that’s the same exact court we play on!! Even LeBron comes to hang out at SAC, and he’s not even Adidas sponsored (haha):

LeBron sighting at SAC, back in 2007

It’s still crazy to me that this is the same damn gym that I’ve spent hours in, playing pickup games, SBK, coaching camps, IM games, and just shooting around.

Boom, the not-really-fading-away fade away.

Maybe we’ll get to play against those NBA all-stars someday… I’m pretty sure I can hold Dwight Howard to  13 points or less in a pickup game. Take that.