James Harden and adidas ask everyone to imagine a world where nobody did anything outside of the norm in the new clip for their ‘Basketball Needs Creators’ campaign.
“What if I gave you what you wanted?” Harden says at the outset. “You know, stopped being creative.” Obviously, he’s the guy known as a nearly unstoppable force with the ball in his hands, capable of finding ways to get buckets from all angles. But, the new ad isn’t so much about him as it is the game itself as Harden reminds everyone just how far hoops extend way past the court and into our daily lives.
In the new ad, the bearded one poses a series of questions: “What if we didn’t drop any heat? Gave you nothing to collect? What if I gave them nothing to rap about?” He focuses on the the game, too, asking, “What if we had no style? Should we send the Euro step back to Europe? What if I was all offense, no defense?”
Okay, that last one is a loaded question but the point is made. The sport thrives off creativity, which bleeds into the rest of the world through hundreds of different ways, including style and fashion. “Basketball clearly needs creators to drive the game forward and James is the torch bearer of this evolution,” says Ryan Morlan, adidas’ VP of Brand Communications, via press release. Harden’s growth includes being one of the new faces of The Three Stripes on and off the court with the launch of his first sig shoe, the Harden Vol. 1, this season. Expect both him and adidas Hoops to keep pushing the envelope to bring a new sense of style to the game in more ways than one.
