Spotlight: Wonderful ad campaign.

Just wanted to take a few seconds after recovering from Lebron James' epic shot to give a shoutout to a wonderful new basketball ad campaign featuring some neat infographic work.

The first comes from the incredibly creative/witty/quick minds at the alternative basketball blog FreeDarko. I first found out about them through their infographic book called FreeDarko presents The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac: Styles, Stats, and Stars in Today's Game. The book is full of wonderful art and some very smart analysis of NBA statistics. Apparently, I was not the only one that was impressed with their work. Not sure how it happened, but Adidas came calling and the results are this very clever advertisements.



The other video, this one about 'Creator' Derrick Rose, can be viewed here.

If those weren't enough to keep you in the NBA playoff mindset, then maybe this rival campaign from Nike Basketball will do the trick. These ones feature Kobe and Lebron playing roles as Most Valuable Roles. Clearly, Nike is banking on the Laker-Cavs finals. With the way their superstars have been playing lately, nothing wrong with that bet. Here's the ads: one, two, and three.