Kanye West NBA

Kanye West was born on June the 8th, 1977. This means last Summer he turned 38. He obviously celebrated it next to his wife, Kim Kardashian and his little girl North West. He did it in the Kanyest of the ways: last June 8th, the Staples Center - the famous Los Angeles Lakers sports arena - has been closed. Kim Kardashian rented it for a whole night, organising a huge birthday party for his husband. They played basketball, twitted a lot and made the whole world jealous.

For 110 thousand dollars Kim has been able to put on the same parquet Kanye West, Pusha T, Tyga, Justin Bieber, but also Russel Westbrook, John Wall, James Harden (fresh of signature with adidas). Kanye has obviously chosen the number 23 and everyone had a good time.

There are different elements of this anecdote that help us to better understand Kanye West's troubled relationship with the NBA world today. KW has been a great fan of the Game for a long time, he's one of the most assiduous presences on the parquets of Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Chicago. But Kanye West, being Kanye West, never approached NBA as a simple fan. He has never invested on it, as Jay-Z did, he has never tried to represent it, in this case the example is Drake. No. Kanye West has always wanted to be the NBA, and he has tried to do so in all the ways that he knows.

 

Today The Life of Pablo comes out, Kanye West's new album. Long awaited, it changed different names: first Swish (the sound of a perfect shot, in basketball), then Waves (leading to dissing with Wiz Khalifa, that has quickly involved Amber Rose) and finally TLOP, which means The Life of Pablo. Of what Pablo, we don't know (Escobar, it seems). Yesterday he also showed the Yeezy Season 3, broadly announced and leaked, and of sure impact also in the NBA world. Yeezy sneakers have been already used on the parquets of half America, by Lou Williams, Jeff Teague and Nick Young aka Swaggy P.

 

Also now there is a big spread of the Yeezy in the looks of the players: almost all the adidas athletes, the new starlet of the Lakers Jordan Clarkson, the list is long indeed. And LeBron James. Or at least he used to, since after the recent developments something among the two (the one fan of the other over that friends) could be broken. What happened? 

On the first day of the year, Kanye West has released Facts, track which belongs to the new album with a motive recalling Drake and Future. "Yeezy Yeezy Yeezy jump on Jumpman" is referred to Jordan and therefore to Nike, brand of which he has been testimonial and with which seems there had been some rust that has brought to the end of the relationship. Despite the angry reactions of all the fans of the Game and the sneakers, Kanye seems to be right.

It's recent news that Nike, always being the solid leader of the market, is losing important portions of it. Concerning basketball sneakers Nike has seen its sales decreased of 14%. Always in the same track KW also summoned LeBron rapping "Nike, Nike treat employees just like slaves/Gave biles LeBron' not to run away". LeBron has responded trying to be as less visible as possible - "I have not listened, but however I’m are from the part of Nike. Nike is as a family". The epilogue is the more “Kanye” as possible: on Twitter, KW excused himself to Jordan. "I respect you so much, it was about Mark Parker" (Nike's CEO).

And then comes the music. The love between Kanye and the NBA probably started when his Amazing, single of its most fortunate album 808 & Heartbreak, was used by the NBA for the Playoff of 2009. That was a different Kanye West, very focused on his music, on how to become what he defines himself as: "one of the best artists ever".

Now Kanye has a new album - presented yesterday live from Madison Square Garden - which counts ten new traces that will keep on influencing everyone, also those that don't care about him. Including the NBA.