The NBA has released a commercial celebrating the upcoming NBA Draft, but it is missing one very important component: 2018 Phoenix Suns first overall pick, Deandre Ayton.
The NBA really does do a very good job of producing fun advertising videos featuring players of the past with those of the present. Nowhere other than video games will we ever see the likes of Larry Bird and Dirk Nowitzki, for instance, playing one-on-one.
In their recent advertisement of the upcoming draft this month (on June 20), shown during Game 5 of the NBA Finals (I have been told that they have shown it before, however this was the first that I had personally seen it), the commercial prominently featured two of the top picks from 2018, Trae Young, and Luka Doncic.
That’s fair, they are two of the three nominees for the NBA’s Rookie of the Year.
Within the montage are also clips of famous players from their childhood, videos of kids that would eventually become the superstars the league is built on.
All-in-all, the video is a lot of fun, specifically because of those old clips, but it is missing one very important person:
Deandre Ayton.
This is not a homer Phoenix Suns fan’s complaint either, the exclusion is as plain as day.
If you haven’t seen it, essentially the commercial has two parts: one is the featuring of the quick clips of the kids who would be stars, then throughout there is an overlaying of Commissioner Adam Silver “excited” to announce the picks that his NBA teams are making.
As the video highlights Young and Luka from 2018, it conspicuously features a first overall pick, but not Ayton from that same draft, rather Ben Simmons, from 2016 – who’s rookie season was not even until 2017-18 having missed what should have been his actual rookie year.
Don’t get me wrong, I can understand skipping over 2017 first overall pick Markelle Fultz, not only has he turned into a Michael Olowokandi-level bust, but he is no longer even on his original team.
Deandre Ayton, on the other hand, is not “broken,” like Fultz’ shot, he has not been traded, he averaged a double-double for not only the first time in Phoenix Suns history for a rookie and the first rookie to do so since Karl-Anthony Towns.
And while I presume that Luka will soon be named Rookie of the Year, he absolutely should not be.
Forget that the Phoenix Suns only won 19 games, this was a commercial about individuals anyway and didn’t even mention which teams selected which players.
Oh, and by the way: along with Luka and Young, Ayton is one of the three finalists for Rookie of the Year.
Sure, Simmons is a bigger overall star than Ayton at the moment, but NBA fans still know who he is. It’s not as if his presence in the commercial would have suddenly confused everyone watching causing them to instantly shut of their TVs, missing the rest of a fantastic NBA Finals game, never watch the sport again.
I have searched the web for a link to the commercial and cannot find one anywhere, but if you have not seen it yet, it will presumably play during Game 6 of the NBA Finals again.
Call it disrespect, call it nothing at all, in the end, Deandre Ayton was passed over in a commercial featuring the NBA Draft, the very process that he was the first overall pick in just one year ago.
The Phoenix Suns are near the bottom of the league right now, but to show two other first round picks from Ayton’s draft while featuring a player from two years prior is a little odd, and the kind of thing that the Suns will be able to avoid in the future if they win, and specifically if Ayton is a key figure in their success.