How To Baffle The Internet: A Conversation With The Mind Behind SportsCenter's Wild NBA Finals Ad

The NBA Finals wrapped up last night with the Denver Nuggets defeating the Miami Heat in five games, securing the franchise's first championship in its 47-year history. In hindsight, the Nuggets' championship looked inevitable, as the team breezed through their side of the playoffs while the Heat overcame seemingly impossible odds and three wild series to even make it to the championship round.

While several of the games were close and the Heat did manage to snag a win, it was fairly clear that the Nuggets, led by Nikola Jokic, had the stronger team and ultimately it didn't take too long for them to crush the Heat's Cinderella run.

While the series itself may not be all that memorable, one thing that likely will be remembered about the 2023 NBA Finals is the curious ad SportsCenter made for it two weeks ago.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO THIS 🍿#NBAFinals pic.twitter.com/y0SZ2BPdfh

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) June 1, 2023

Released the day of Game 1, SportsCenter's NBA Finals promo video hit the timeline like a fever dream. Its surreal, "artistic" interpretation of jumbo-headed Joker Jokic and Heat star Jimmy Butler impossibly dunking their way through the 2023 playoffs left jaws agape, as commenters seemed split on whether the ad was incredibly cursed or incredibly based.

It was a divisive, bizarre and hilarious internet moment, so naturally, we at Know Your Meme covered it, raising questions such as "what?" and "why?" Upon the ad going viral, we wrote, "At the time of writing, SportsCenter has not offered a much-needed explanation and/or apology for its bizarre video."

with the miami/denver finals series now over, it’s important we revisit this fever dream released at the beginning of it https://t.co/viULJDdesY

— Hailey something 🤷‍♀️ (@samosu_) June 13, 2023

This led J'ron Erby, social media manager at ESPN and the creative mind behind the ad, to reach out to us to explain how this wild moment came to be.

Q: There was a range of comparisons when the video was released. We saw people say it reminded them of mobile game ads with a little bit of NBA Street. What was your concept and what were some of our influences when putting the ad together?

A: The concept was focused on showcasing the “Path to the Finals” of both teams in an innovative way. The initial influence started when I saw the animator we partnered with, Ali, create this video focused on Drake a little over a year ago. I’m very focused on executing thumb-stopping innovative creative that captures the attention of our audience so I knew we could develop something awesome after understanding Ali’s skillset. Quickly, I will shout out Keith Trawick, another very talented sports creative who worked with Ali before we had a chance to.

From a creative standpoint, ensuring our approach was differentiated was also a focal point. In terms of the intricacies of the creative itself, step one was to lean into recognizable visuals and audio hooks. The ESPN team who made this video a reality was made up of Hezekiah Johnson, Mohammed Kloub, Grant Goldberg, Bam Idowu, and myself. We are knowledgeable enough about both pop and sports culture to incorporate moments that resonate with a variety of audiences, from casual NBA fans who will remember Jimmy Butler recreating Al Horford’s timeout call, to those tied to sports and culture who will recognize the recreation of Jadakiss’ stealing the show at the Dipset vs. The Lox Verzuz, to Gen Z social users who will recognize the frequently used Grand Theft Auto and Magic Johnson memes, to film enthusiasts who would notice scenes from Hustle and Sorry To Bother You.

Q: We initially wrote that it must have taken two days to put the ad together, as there were only two days between when the Heat clinched a Finals spot and the release of the video, but this might not have been the case. How long did the video take to make and, if there were multiple routes the video could take in case another team made it to the Finals, how was it edited together in those two days?

A: The full process took about a month, as we kicked off communication with Ali a little less than a month before the NBA Finals began. We waited until the Conference Finals were set before building the creative, which allowed us to lock in on four potential concepts. Version one: Lakers vs Celtics. Version two: Nuggets vs Celtics. Version three: Lakers vs Heat, and version four: Nuggets vs Heat. So, we prepared scripts for each scenario, and Ali began to focus on the concepts that were most likely to happen. So, the Heat versions jumped to the front of the line pretty quickly, and as you can imagine we were sweating a bit as the Celtics came back to even the series 3-3.

To answer your question regarding edit time, our social team plans ahead with a bit of a “What if this happened…” approach, so ideas are already presented and being edited before the anticipated event occurs. For example, you’ll notice Nikola Jokic sweeping toward the end of the video because the Nuggets swept the Lakers. We already asked Ali to prep that action when the Nuggets were up 2-0. So, it mainly just boils down to being creative, as well as being proactive instead of reactive in efforts to maximize efficiency and minimize time spent.

Q: We imagine you've seen the range of responses to the ad. From our own scan, we saw people either really love it or really hate it. Did you anticipate the ad would be that divisive when it dropped? Were you counting on it getting people talking, even if it wasn't all positive chatter?

A: I was definitely confident in the creative from an engagement and ‘get people talking’ standpoint, but will admit it stretched further than I anticipated. When you take in a piece of content, you should feel "something" you know? I’m very creative-focused, so I think a lot of content out there is dull and I attempt to separate my projects from "the norm," I guess.

Hopefully, what you feel when viewing this isn’t disdain lol, but overall, the content should provide something for you whether that’s humor or bewilderment, a conversation starter with other friends, etc. I believe we accomplished that more than your average piece of content, which I enjoy. Also, we’re very analytical focused here, and more locked into the engagement (likes and views) than the comments. The 50M views and likes drastically outweigh any negative commentary.

Q: Did you see any responses that made you particularly chuckle or any that you particularly liked?

A: There were a handful man. This one is interesting because it gained so much traction, thousands of people could relate to being left speechless. The bowling tweets out there definitely deserve a gold star, perfect quote tweet. Honestly the negative “whoever made this needs to be locked up” type responses out there are the funniest and weirdly enough the most enjoyable.

This the video that show up when you bowl a strike https://t.co/nliSGNOJR4

— Le5-6 (@deepyy_) June 1, 2023

Q: Do you have a favorite basketball meme from this season?

A: I really don’t like following rules so I’ll throw two at you. A talented hip-hop group out of LA known as BlueBucksClan has a line about Nicolas Batum which has been memeified, if you know you know. Then for 2nd, I’d probably say LeBron when he was being dramatic on the ground after he didn’t get a foul call at the end of the 4th quarter in that regular season game against the Celtics.

For what it's worth, it appears Erby and co. have not been deterred by the divisiveness of their NBA Finals ad and in fact may have been encouraged by it.

Just this morning, SportsCenter posted another 3D video, this time showing Nikola Jokic scrolling through an Instagram feed in celebration of his championship, and it so far seems to be going down a little smoother than the Finals ad.

Give whoever made this a raise https://t.co/ie0Q9zPNfZ

— Black Marlins Man 🫡 (@ampaveli) June 13, 2023