The Cavaliers and Nike on Sunday "took out full-page ads in a special section commemorating the team's season," according to Joey Morona of the Cleveland PLAIN DEALER. Nike's ad in the Plain Dealer featured the back of Cavaliers F LeBron James "in his NBA Finals jersey." It "succinctly looks back at the season and playoffs, ending with a reminder that there is still unfinished business for James in Cleveland" (CLEVELAND.com, 6/21). The ad reads in part, "Imagine if their big man went down, but they still found a way to power through the Eastern Conference. ... Imagine if they pushed Game 1 to overtime but lost another star to injury. ... Imagine if they shocked the world and took the next two games. Imagine if fatigue caught up with them, and they lost Games 4 and 5. Imagine if they defied odds, logic and the basketball gods to come back and win the series in 7. Except this isn't Hollywood. It's Cleveland. Nothing is given. Everything is earned" (CLEVELAND.com, 6/21). In Akron, Dan Kadar notes when James announced in SI that he was returning to the Cavaliers, he "used the phrase 'Nothing is given. Everything is earned.'" The phrase "became something of a rallying cry for Northeast Ohio," and Nike "used it" in its ad (OHIO.com, 6/22). ESPN’s Pablo Torre said, "The reuse of this slogan as a moneymaking proposition makes me look differently at LeBron." ESPN’s Israel Gutierrez said of the ad, "This is so terrible. ‘Fatigue caught up with him?’ So (Warriors G) Steph Curry and the Warriors had nothing to do with that?" Denver Post columnist Woody Paige added, "Whoever wrote that will never be confused with Walt Whitman or a great poet and the font was so bad you couldn’t read it to begin with. ... It could have been so much more creative" ("Around The Horn," ESPN, 6/22).
STEPHING STONE: In S.F., Ron Leuty noted Curry and the Warriors "are expected to score big deals in the game of endorsements and sponsorships coming off an NBA championship." Repucom Exec VP/Americas Peter Laatz said that Curry "could see his already-rising image climb to new heights." Laatz added that Curry's social-media presence "grew strongly during the Warriors' run to the championship: He gained 1 million Facebook connections, 2 million Instagram users and a half-million Twitter followers." Leuty noted Curry already has "gained a number of endorsement deals." Curry's numbers in seven key categories tracked by Repucom "continued to grow through the season," thanks in part to an All-Star game appearance and an MVP award. Curry's celebrity-tracking numbers "put him at the top of the list" of NBA players. However, his "'awareness' numbers, though growing, still were lower than players such as" James (BIZJOURNALS.com, 6/23).
