Hunting for Unicorns in the NBA

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In the past, a handful of basic precepts defined how the N.B.A. and the shoe-company nation-states dependent on its stars marketed themselves: Big cities beat small ones. The biggest men are harder to market than their closer-to-normal-size teammates. The more television exposure, the better. Winning matters. Also important is relatability, or the connection between player and consumer, which usually involves the players personal biography. Larry Bird was the Hick From French Lick, in Indiana; LeBron James might as well have just walked off a factory line, so completely defined is he by his Rust Belt Ohio roots.

Those old imperatives have never exerted much of a hold over a new, enlightened generation of N.B.A. fans. Ten years ago, the influential basketball blog FreeDarko coined the term liberated fandom. What FreeDarko celebrated were the quirks and oddities of specific N.B.A. players rather than winning seasons or huge marketing campaigns or even geography. (Disclosure: I wrote a few posts for FreeDarko.) Since then, more N.B.A. fans have detached themselves from tribal ties to local teams. And while the franchises and shoe companies that make up the N.B.A. economy havent completely caught up with the online buzz generated by the leagues most dedicated fans, they have begun to prepare for what feels like inevitable change. Antetokounmpo and fellow young unicorns like Kristaps Porzingis of the Knicks and Joel Embiid of the Sixers their taxonomic I.D., co-opted from Silicon Valley, refers to a singular talent without antecedent will go a long way toward determining whether the pro-basketball industrial complex can make as much money appealing to liberated fans as to their hidebound, local-market counterparts.

The size of the market doesnt really matter anymore, Dustin Godsey, the Milwaukee Bucks chief marketing officer, told me, referring to a teams location. You can be a superstar anywhere.

When the team drafted Antetokounmpo three years ago, he was unknown, born in Greece to Nigerian parents. The Bucks didnt bother putting him on billboards as the face of the franchise. Instead, Milwaukee became the first team, according to Godsey, to provide instant in-game highlights on social media, most of which featured Antetokounmpo streaking up the court and making moves that hinted at his absurd potential. In the three seasons that followed, Milwaukee never finished with a winning record. Antetokounmpo did not make an All-Star Game that should change this year, his fourth, because he has been averaging something like 24 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists but video views through Bucks social feeds tripled over the last year. Online streaming of local games doubled. In response, Godseys team changed its strategy: Antetokounmpo now appears on billboards in Wisconsin, in TV ads, at events. Whether he has earned this superstar treatment is of no account he looks good in seven-second video clips.

For the past couple of decades, Nike has practiced caution with its basketball stars. Back in the early 2000s, when Michael Jordan was in his final days with the Washington Wizards, Nike and its Jordan brand aggressively marketed young players like Darius Miles and Quentin Richardson. After they failed to achieve stardom, Nike started to exercise more patience. Today, the company has a tiered system unofficially in place: LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and the like are signature shoe athletes, and most of the rest get occasional spots in a commercial. Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans and DeMarcus Cousins of the Sacramento Kings have been two of the highest-scoring players in the N.B.A. this season. They play improvisational, position-free basketball (like Antetokounmpo) and are adored by N.B.A. nerds. Both are signed to Nike but have been relegated to what amounts to a bench role.

Photo Credit Photo illustration by Cristiana Couceiro. White jersey: Mike McGinnis/Getty Images. All other photos: Stacy Revere/Getty Images.

The N.B.A. is changing, Russ Bengtson, an emeritus editor of Slam magazine and a senior editor at Complex, told me. The shoe companies need to figure out a way to become super-nimble the league is full of unicorns now, and by the time a guy becomes a story, the next guy is already coming up. The whole definition of what a star is has changed a bit, and they need to be able to strike while the iron is hot.

As the season rolls into the All-Star break, nearly half the players leading the voting play in ways that defy the old but still widely held archetypes the high-flying shooting guard, the stoic center, the scrappy white sharpshooter. The marketing efforts havent fully caught up to the evolution. This month, Nike released a signature shoe for Paul George, who like Jordan and Kobe Bryant is a handsome, high-scoring shooting guard. But George, who plays for the Indiana Pacers, doesnt signal a possible paradigm shift as Antetokounmpo or Embiid or Porzingis does. He may be very good, but he does not fire up the internet. His time as the N.B.A.s next big thing probably peaked three seasons ago, too.

Because the hype cycle for up-and-coming stars still moves too quickly for them to be marketing stars as well, its unclear when players like Antetokounmpo, who have no real on-court or business archetypal predecessor, will be able to convert online hype into reliable moneymaking. Nationally, he is still a commercial puzzle a Nike representative told me the company is going to put him in a digital campaign but wouldnt elaborate on other plans.

Antetokounmpo seems to understand that we havent yet completely entered the liberated future. In the locker room after his game-winning shot at the Garden, I asked him if he thought his career so far would have been different if he played in New York or Los Angeles. He seemed, at first, perplexed by the question, before he said, I guess I would have gotten more publicity. But then, like so many up-and-coming superstars, he retreated straight into the sorts of clich that have become the soundtrack for the marketable athlete. But anywhere I am, he said, I am going to be a gym rat and work hard.

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