Quote Originally Posted by gopokes88 View Post
Except for I have family that works very high up the chain at Nike and would giggle at everything you just said. None of it is true. Nike basketball wasn’t hemorrhaging anything. They had lebron who just won a title for Cleveland.

I really respect your postings here urbanized, but you’re just dead wrong on this one. Nike doesn’t interfere with where players go, it’s not how they do business or operate, to the point it’s incorporated into the pitches they make to players. We don’t interfere, you have the freedom to decide where you want to play.
That your contacts work high up the chain doesn't really sell the point you think it sells.

You're telling me no individual at Nike saw the huge win it would be for them for KD to sign with GSW and thought "Maybe we need to fan the flames here"?

No one is saying "Nike told KD to go to GSW." I find the notion that everyone at Nike played Switzerland and kept tight lips on what decision they believed to be best for Nike hard to believe. If people at these types of mega-corporations toe the line on keeping a tight lid when the SEC can send them to jail for issues like insider trading, my guess is that they do not perform better when it comes to non-legal issues that directly impact their business.

To be certain I 100% believe you regarding what their policy is and that they sell exactly that to their players. But there is no possible chance that they had no influence. Any person of any consequence at Nike would basically have to have cut-off contact with every individual in KD's personal and business circle at that time. A Mom talking to her 18 year-old son's 17 year-old girlfriend about how she will miss her son if he goes 3 states away to college is not some big conspiracy of a Mom trying to force her son to stay in state for college...it's just the natural ebb and flow of an individual communicating their desires---even if she had already told her son that she's going to let him decide what's best of this life. That anecdote is not particularly far from what would be the normal course of business here.