The NBA has always been the most image-conscious member of the professional sports fraternity. Where would we be if basketball stars hadn’t inspired the creation of robbery-inducing shoes or taken body art to new and ever more unimaginable places, such as DeShawn Stevenson‘s neck, now the home of an Abraham Lincoln tattoo?
Thus, the opening of team training camps this week has been a reminder that the NBA is at once starting to feel like the red carpet at the Oscars and yet continues to flirt tantalizingly close to crossing the line into the world of WWE.
Recommended Stories
How else to explain the throng of personal publicists in tow for Los Angeles Lakers media day? Apparently, Lamar Odom‘s wedding to Khloe Kardashian — who’s firmly entrenched in the vortex of being famous because she’s a celebrity — is at least as important as defending an NBA title.
Odom’s non-Lakers handlers wouldn’t let him talk about Kardashian — surely public relations staff cuts in El Segundo are imminent — but no one reigns in Ron Artest, who’s in Hollywood looking for his own reality show as well as a ring.
“I’m always trying to be in the media anyway,” said Artest. “I’m always trying to do things to stay out in the public, stay relevant. That’s my history, of being a distraction to the team.”
Our thoughts exactly.
In the meantime, placing limits around Twitter only seeks to ensure that players use social media to interact with their fan base outside of the games — if only they’d stop telling us about going to work out. At least Andre Iguodala tweeted Thursday that his new Nike Hyperizer shoes weren’t cleared by the NBA because they’re soles are made from gum. Good times.
But only the fact that the NBA remains a player-driven enterprise allows the league to get away with hiring replacement referees with the Tim Donaghy case barely off the radar.
If the front office spent as much time trying to improve officiating as it has worrying about potential complaints — teams have received memos warning them of the penalties — the core product itself might actually be what keeps fans in the seats for the games.
