Over the years, the NBA machine has become the undisputed master at marketing its players as superstars. In the post Magic/Bird era, and following the rise of Air Jordan we’ve seen many campaigns designed to get you to believe the hype.Now in the global recession, the NBA is spending more ad money on showing players as caring gentle giants full of charitable love, partly to stem a growing trend of fan alienation and partly (let’s be honest) to keep a majority white audience in love with an overwhelmingly black game.This leaves the players themselves to toot their own horns and both individual teams and their endorsers have been tasked with shining the light. From viral video of Kobe jumping over cars, Lebron throwing up more powder than the last five minutes of Scarface, athletes and their handlers are well aware of the quirkiness and viral power of marketing.In this climate comes one of the stranger campaigns I’ve ever seen: Amare Stoudemire’s quest to be voted on the All-Star Team. This year, the game is being held in Amare’s hometown of Phonix. Unfortunately he’s got a few things going against him. Yao Ming’s billion countrymen assure his starting center nod, which is why Big Fun(damental) Tim Duncan is on the ballot as a forward, and a shoe-in. Amare’s own teammate Shaq is putting up numbers at the 5 that will pretty much guarantee him a coaches nod. Similarly, while Kobe and Chris Paul have the back court votes on lock, you know that the coaches will be hard pressed to not pick Nash in his home game. Where does that leave Stat?Pao Gasol and The Lake Show are presently leading the league and that generally calls for more than one player to make it. Dirk Nowitzki, another international player with countrymen who can vote is also putting up his usual big numbers. When you add fan favorite and Olympian Carmelo Anthony into the picture along with Duncan, it’s a tight squeeze to the end.To draw a bit of attention, Amare’s team has delivered a number of bizarre vids to the web. here they are in all their…splendor. I don’t know if they are working or not but they sure are strange. I don’t know if this is gonna fly or make anyone vote for him but maybe if you vote for him then the vids will stop.
