Becoming a Global Icon: What Not to Do


Lebron James is really the perfect example. He’s the best basketball player in the world, he’s marketed by the most prominent sports apparel company in the world, and between publicists shaping his every word and NBA marketing campaigns spinning his every success or failure, there are a lot of people with considerable clout that are interested in making him the most popular athlete on the planet.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way anymore. Today it takes more than marketing and on-court success to make someone an icon—you have to be authentic.
If you walk around in shirts touting your own accomplishments or confiscate evidence of a tape that might make you look the slightest bit vulnerable, we’re going to know about it. Or, if you’re like Steve Nash, and you generally enjoy talking to people and are willing to take a picture with just about anyone, we’ll know that, too. Nash isn’t pretending to be funny and good-natured.


If you walk around in shirts touting your own accomplishments or confiscate evidence of a tape that might make you look the slightest bit vulnerable, we’re going to know about it. Or, if you’re like Steve Nash, and you generally enjoy talking to people and are willing to take a picture with just about anyone, we’ll know that, too. Nash isn’t pretending to be funny and good-natured.
Lebron’s not quite there yet. He’s talented on the court, and he’s displayed impressive savvy off it, but he’s still the type of person who needs us to think he’s the best basketball player in the world. His insecurity is obvious, and inconsistent with the invincible images put forth by Nike and the NBA. So that despite the enormous investment in Lebron JamesTM, Lebron the 24 year-old is still navigating between the icon he’s supposed to be, and the person he really is.
That’s doesn’t make him a bad person, but it's evocative of a cynicism about the game that has colored his career thus far. Getting dunked on is as much a part of basketball as dunking on someone. It's all in good fun. If someone embarrasses you with a crossover in a pickup game (I know this feeling well), you laugh, smile, and pledge to one-up them on the other end. It's part of competition, and part of what makes the game fun.


That’s doesn’t make him a bad person, but it's evocative of a cynicism about the game that has colored his career thus far. Getting dunked on is as much a part of basketball as dunking on someone. It's all in good fun. If someone embarrasses you with a crossover in a pickup game (I know this feeling well), you laugh, smile, and pledge to one-up them on the other end. It's part of competition, and part of what makes the game fun.
For Lebron, it's never been a game. Basketball is a business. A vehicle to world dominance. Asked a few years ago to some up his career aspirations, Lebron didn't mention chamionships, MVPs, or the Hall of Fame. He answered, "Two words: Global Icon."
But in his quest to reach that plateau, incidents like this tape fiasco are in stark contrast to the ways in which he and his handlers would like him perceived. Unfortunately for Nike, and fortunately for us, it’s not up to them anymore. The internet has created a landscape where transparency reigns, and the ones who get rewarded with rabid fans are the ones who are naturally cool, and comfortable in their own skin.


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o Becoming a Global Icon: What Not to Do
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