It’s been a week since my first Los Fearless experience, and going into this past Tuesday night, I’d be lying if I said I knew what to expect. To catch everyone up to speed, Los Fearless is Nike’s secret 2-on-2 tournament; set to throw down during NBA All-Star weekend in L.A. In the Los Fearless circle, which includes 128 of us “Chosen Elite” as Nike says, our team is known as “Birdman’s Tattoo Advisors.” Because, why not?
After being taken under an overpass in the heart of industrial Los Angeles last Wednesday – and to an abandoned warehouse – it was hard to tell how Nike would handle part deux of the experience. Our team’s appointment was set for 8:00pm at the Nike Vault downtown next to Staples Center, and the outside corner was cracking with people flooding over from another event at the Nokia Theater next door. Once we walked up on the Vault, which provided us with no signs or directions to where we were supposed to go, we found a side door semi-propped open. Upon opening the door, a member of the Los Fearless crew was waiting for us in an all-black hoody.
“Who y’all?” is what we were greeted with. After failing again to make small talk with one of the LF fam, we were each given a small key and instructed to head into a back room and wait. The room was set up like our own private Niketown. To our left was a six row deep wall of red and blue Nikes. To our right, lay a rack of jerseys, shorts and different color iron-on options of the Los Fearless logo. And in front of us was a TV screen; one that quickly presented our old friend, the raspy-voiced anonymous man in the hood.
When the Los Fearless voice speaks, you listen, because when he talks it’s never for very long. This time, he explained how we had 10 minutes to complete our given task for the evening – creating our team uniforms. Sounds easy, but we had to match every decision as a team and we had to do it in a specific order. Shorts (grey/red), check. Jersey (white/grey), check. Logo color (black), check. Then came the money round: kicks. And we had a decision between three of Nike’s newest. On the bottom lineup, was an all-red version of the Nike Zoom KD III, in the middle was an all-blue All-Star version of the Nike LeBron 8 V/2 and on top sat pairs of the red All-Star Nike Zoom Kobe VI. We opted for the Kobes – got to go with speed and agility over power in the crunch. After finishing our selections, we were each told to put on a Los Fearless hoody, stand on a marked X and wait.
Luckily for me, the next person to emerge from the shadows came with a friendly past. Photographer Rob Hammer, who you may know from this thing we did with Blake Griffin recently, stepped out from another backroom to take our photo, give us our final instructions and send us packing. Inside of our next packet were instructions to make another appointment this upcoming week, with the disclaimer “Come Ready To Play.” Dope. Finally we get to jump on the court, catch some burn and assumingly test out our new Kobe VIs. And along with the new instructions, Nike provided another dogtag charm for our chains.
That’s where I’m at now. The next step awaits us this Tuesday evening, with the main event set to happen somewhere in the City of Angels on Saturday, Feb. 19 during All-Star Weekend.
And make sure you check these out to see what I’m talking about:
Los Fearless – All-Star Weekend Teaser #1
Los Fearless – All-Star Weekend Teaser #2
Follow my journey through Los Fearless on Twitter at @jensenjack.
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