Greatest Basketball Commercials of All-Time

With the emergence of the hilarious “Fast Don’t Lie” commercials by Adidas, staring Derrick Rose, Dwight Howard and Ken Jeong (Community), it made my think about my favorite basketball commercials of all time. Here is my list of top five commercials ever:

5. “The Second Coming” by Nike

Can you actually imagine this happening? Kobe, LeBron, Chris Paul, Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire, Tony Parker, Paul Pierce and younger versions of Rasheed Wallace, Shawn Marion and Jermaine O’Neal – all getting together for a game of pickup ball? In an airplane hangar? Awesome!

The Juelz Santana soundtrack tops it off nicely!

4. Jordan vs. Jordan by Gatorade

How cool was it to see the Bulls’ Michael Jordan take on the retired Michael Jordan? At the end we are all treated to a little surprise with North Carolina Jordan makes a visit. The only thing better would have been to see a game of ’21′ between all three…Hmmm, maybe I should contact Gatorade about this.

3. Bird vs. Jordan by McDonalds

McDonalds came up with a great idea here. So great, they decided to bring it back 20 years later starring LeBron James and Dwight Howard, including a cameo by Larry Legend. The crazy thing is about this commercial is that you can actually visualize this happening – two of the most competitive guys to ever play the game competing for something as small as a cheeseburger…from McDonalds of all places.

2.  “I am not a role model” by Nike

The Round Mound of Rebound had been preaching that athletes should never be looked at as role models for children – parents should. I guess Nike agreed with him and thought it was a perfect idea for a commercial. If I’m not mistaken, this commercial made it’s debut about a year after Barkley spit on a young girl that sitting courtside at a Nets game. That incident alone made it clear that athletes are athletes, never role models.

1. Michael Jordan & Mars Blackmon – Nike

Nike teamed up MJ with Spike “Mars Blackmon” Lee to film these two classics – I could not pick just one of these to fill the top spot. Three things that we learned/received from these two classic commercials:

1. Watching Spike Lee get dunked on by Michael is hilarious.
2. We got the phrase, “gotta be the shoes”.
3. We learned how annoying Spike Lee really is.

Well there is the list ladies and gentlemen. Did we miss one? What is your favorite? Please let us know, by filling up the comments section.