Here's a peeping Tom-style video, supposedly shot by this kid, in which Kevin Durant supposedly moves into what's supposedly his new house. It's an ad for Nike. Because that's all anything ever is anymore.
I bring this up because just the other day there was a great hue and cry over LeBron's new commercial, which our own David Matthews found "cloying." I don't want to get into the semiotics of selling basketball shoes, but mark it down: Someone, somewhere — Bleacher Report, you're on the clock — will wave around this bit of anti-marketing as evidence of Durant's enduring humility, of the widening chasm between his self-presentation and LeBron's. And maybe Durant really is different. Maybe he is the national sports unicorn everyone wants him to be. But give me 20 cloying LeBron commercials over one of these. All I'm seeing here is, as a friend puts it, a guy selling t-shirts that say "humble" on them.
Kevin Durant Has a Peeping Tom [The Oklahoman]
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