🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Offer season ticket holders 120% of face value today for season tickets this season, then resell them tomorrow for 150% of face value.

Tell Cindy she won't be seeing Bill much until after KU wins the ring next April.

Tell adidas we will wear the stupid looking uniforms as a quid pro quo for Ingram.

Thank Pitino and Bo for letting adidas stack Self this season, and promise that we will step aside each of the next seasons for them to take their turns at being stacked.

Lay down unprecedentedly massive bets on KU beating Schlocka Smart every meeting this coming season.

Console Perry about not getting to play the 3 AGAIN!

Email DARPA to begin microwave mind control transmissions to Frank Mason to feed Ingram every time down the floor.

Text message DARPA to begin microwave mind control transmissions to Diallo to sign with KU tomorrow.

Facetime DARPA to begin microwave mind control transmissions to the President and all the Presidential candidates NOT to say or do anything to start a war, or trigger a melt-down into martial law that might pre-empt KU's championship season.

Call Danny and ask him to teach Landen a jump hook this summer for when Ingram occasionally dishes it to him off a drive.

Email the Drake Group to hold another presser about UNC's "easy course" scandal.

Remember, Brandon is not the next Lebron, or the next Wigs, but the first Brandon.

(Note all fiction. No malice. Repeat after me, Brandon: KU!!!!!!!)

@jaybate-1.0 where can we watch?

@Crimsonorblue22

Great question. I don't know. Lately I learn things here about as fast as anywhere. Someone here usually leaks it before it happens. :-)

I do have one suggestion. Contact a cheating stock broker and ask him...

Where's the fast fiber?

Then access the internet by it.

You should learn it about 10 seconds before the rest of us. :-)

This station has a live feed and is supposed to be at the announcement...

Live feed...maybe??? ↗

@JayHawkFanToo that's what I found!

This site as well, subject to "signal quality"???

Another live feed??? ↗

Disappointing, but no surprise. Duke it is.

Lol I'm so shocked.

The sky is falling

Yikes... another guy where we probably put a bunch of recruiting resources on and produced a big zero for Kansas.

@drgnslayr shit happens!

@Crimsonorblue22

Didn't Forest Gump say that?

Shucks... I thought Brandon would want to test his game out this summer against Internationals... like Serbia.

@jaybate-1.0 damm

@Lulufulu

Yep, its an owie on the heart.

Self and KU needed a break.

But this could refocus things on Jaylen Brown.

IMHO Ingram and Brown will tell us the most about where this Nike vs. adidas thing is heading.

Nike has appeared to control the elite big men for years now.

The only inroads adidas has made has been on a few elite point guards and wings--essentially the elite perimeter guys KU, UL, and UCLA have been able to gather.

Long time Nike-Jordan lean Ingram jump shifting to Nike-Nike Duke confirms that Nike leans still tend to sign with Nike programs. But it also suggests there maybe some kind of power shift within Nike involving Nike-Jordan and Nike-Nike.

Long time adidas lean Jaylen Brown seems recently to be favoring Nike-UK. If Brown signs with Nike-UK, it basically means that adidas cannot even hold the slim ground it has gained the last couple of years. Losing Brown to Nike-UK could actually signal a death knell for adidas as a would be competitor seeking greater market share in USA basketball. If adidas cannot even deliver Brown to an adidas program, it appears to be in serious trouble IMHO.

@jaybate-1.0 I know you've been singing praise for Brown to KU for a while. I hope he commits to KU. Adidas just shifted focus from the NBA to NCAA a couple months ago, right? They are a world wide brand with soccer. They just need some more time to bridge the gap between them and Nike.

@jaybate-1.0 Here's another thought. As I said before, Adidas is a world wide brand in Futbol. Basketball is primarily a US driven sport. Sure, there is Fiba and the World games and the Olympics but isnt Adidas the primary there? Yet another question, what does Adidas make in terms of revenue with soccer? Does it compare to what Nike makes with basketball in the states? Its got to, right? I mean, world wide vs the states in terms of population, its not even close. Maybe Adidas sees something in basketball that is worth it to them to invest in and try to bridge the gap with Nike. If that is their thought process, it'll take some time to make it happen. I hope KU sticks around with Adidas.

@Lulufulu

You have distilled the essence of what I have been laboring a few years to hypothesize and call attention to. But it goes a bit deeper. Soccer shoes cannot be made as cheaply as basketball shoes and soccer shoes cannot be worn recreationally. Thus the global market for basketbal shoes is orders of magnitude greater, even though more kids play soccer now, but not later if a global push to spread basketball were to occur. Finally, basketball shoes and clothing can fuse more easily than soccer shoes and clothing as the business migrates into selling petro clothing. Underneath this is all about migrating the world's shoes and clothing consumption from natural fibers to petro fibers. The EU being in depression makes Adidas participation only more urgent in needing to offset EU losses with mArket share increases in North America via basketball.

@jaybate-1.0 Huh, the old petro clothes ploy. Didnt think about that one. You're right though, its trendier to mesh basketball shoes with street clothes. Why would Adidas bail on the NBA, or let their contract expire or whatever and make an investment in the NCAA world if they didnt think it would be marketable or turn a profit for them or at least be semi competitive with Nike? Maybe they didnt have a choice in the matter. I dont know. But, what does need to happen now that Adidas is investing in college ball now is they need to get into more schools. They need to use their world wide influence and money base to chip away at the monopoly Nike has in this particular market.

@Lulufulu

The college branded apparel market is huge compared to the NBA; the biggest portion of it, shoes, are endorsed by players individually and not by teams or the NBA at large. Until I mentioned in previous posts that the NBA teams wore Adidas unis, most poster did not even know this was the case.I think Adidas believes the money is better invested in college sports than in the NBA. Can't say I disagree with that.

@jaybate-1.0

Compared to basketball shoes, soccer shoes are very simple and can be made for considerably less than a basketball shoe; the price of both is high because of the name of the endorsers and not necessarily because of the cost of producing the shoes themselves.

@JayHawkFanToo

First word: cleats.

So: We disagree on complexity.

We do agree that as we move toward global markets of runs of half a billion shoes the marginal cost of any petroleum resin and fiber based shoe nears zero, no matter the complexity likely to be used in a basketball shoe for everyday wear.

But, of course the most important point is kids and adults just don't wear cleated shoes to school, or work, or shopping or on weekends the way they wear basketball shoes. And this is the angle that is driving shoe wars and making b-ball shoes the spearhead of attack. They tried hiking and tennis and track shoes, but those sports didn't translate to global markets.

@Lulufulu

It made no sense for Adidas to keep trying to sell apparel with an NBA connection, because Nike controls the vast majority of the important NBA shoewear endorsers. They have to connect the shoes and the apparel and they could not find a way to do that in through the NBA. I agree with you that they need to focus on college. They have concluded apparently that they cannot negotiate enough NBA players away from Nike- Nike and Nike-Jordan. It appears they have decided to concentrate on building relationships in Junior high, high school college before it is too late. Money to be made in the United States is perhaps greater in college products, and Adidas problems in Europe mean it has to generate revenues right away in USA. But the long-term play remained professional basketball-- both the NBA and professional leagues overseas. Professional basketball is the long term marketing path to impact shoe and apparel shoe global markets IMHO.

@jaybate-1.0

IMHO, I think you got it wrong. Adidas is not leaving the NBA market altogether; it is staying with basketball players individually but is no longer paying hundreds of millions for the privilege of providing unis to the league with the Adidas logo that nobody really sees. I would be surprised if Nike picks up that contract as the ROI is just not there; more likely Under Armour or a Chinese firm with lots of disposable income will get the contract for less than Adidas was paying. Just my opinion and I could be wrong.

@JayHawkFanToo

LOL! ;-)

Of course adidas is bailing out of the NBA to concentrate on the college and of course it was sucking air on the NBA threads.

The other reason adidas pulled out was to put some more pressure on the Nike-Jordan and Nike-Nike fissure.

The Nike-Jordan folks will want to jump in on the NBA thread contract, because the Jordan brand is so heavily NBA oriented and could make so much money at home and abroad from doing so.

The Nike-Nike division will be wanting to lay off, because Nike appears to be in a mode of trying to plateau Nike-Jordan and grow Nike-Nike to get more control over their business, IMHO.

It was a smart move all around by adidas, whether they're desparate, or sufficiently backed.

You have to understand that adidas has apparently just taken the worst that the giant has to dish out in the NBA and college. It has apparently shut the player spigot to a drip to adidas programs in college and apparently stopped the theft at the NBA level since Wiggins, who "totally coincidentally" got side-tracked into the media black hole of chainsaw ice sculptures, Minneapolis St. Paul. And Embiid, who they were probably worrying about more than Wigs, is out in the injury ethers. adidas appears barely able to supply its five lonely big time programs with 3 stacks and Nike appears to be sewing 5-10 stack programs to dominate conferences faster than mushrooms coming up off last years spore around a dead Douglas Fir in a Pacific Northwest coniferous rainforest between Eugene and the coast. The giant has really appeared to flex its North American muscles and god only knows what the giant might be doing in strategically targeted overseas markets in other sports. But adidas has had that money management outfit (name forgotten) that took a very big ownership position quite some time ago now and that outfit among other things reputedly manages untraceable bail out monies, and so as long as that deep pockets investment management firm backs adidas (I haven't checked for a year or so, so I can't say if that firm is still invested or not), we should soon see adidas go on the offensive again. Take their best shot, let them reveal their strategy, and then strike back.

We will know about how serious adidas is if Self stays at KU and Donovan goes to the NBA. Donovan is Nike-Nike, and if he is washing his hands of Nike-Nike in college, it means that another round of shoewar may be about to break out.

If Self jumps to OKC, which seems very unlikely now, it could mean the adidas movement is throwing in the sponge.

Fun thing to watch.

Glad I haven't got any money at risk in it.

Rock Chalk!