While I love basketball, the NBA seems to have lost some luster for me in recent years. I've thought about it and I've realized the problem: The commercials aren't as good as they used to be. In my opinion, the late 90's and thereabouts had the best commercials for athletes of any sport at any time. Today's NBA player commercials just don't have the same charm. With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to revisit some of these classics that still evoke a smile today.

Sprite

Admit it, Sprite's "Obey Your Thirst" campaign was the greatest in the history of ad campaigns. The commercials featuring Grant Hill have never been equaled. Someone on YouTube has already done us the favor of compiling all the Grant Hill Sprite commercials. The quality is unfortunately not the best, so you can't see the tears streaming down Grant's face when he starts his acting career, but at least the immortal "Cowboy" song is preserved.



The rest of these Sprite commercials didn't feature NBA players, but they aired during NBA games and are classic all the same.






Reading is FUNdamental

Yeah, they're corny, but you've gotta love 'em.

Reggie Miller:



Juwan Howard:



Shaquille O'Neal:



Nike

Remember when Anfernee Hardaway was a bonafide superstar? He even had a series of commercials for Nike featuring him and "Li'l Penny," a fast-talking puppet sidekick. Tyra Banks was known to appear in them too.





This list wouldn't be complete without Michael Jordan making an appearance, so here's the commercial that's stuck with me the most over the years.



I remember Jordan commenting on this commercial and saying that it seemed like he'd failed more than this commercial says he did.

Pepsi

Of course, there was always the big man himself, Shaq. He's never kept a low-profile, and back in the day he endorsed Pepsi.





All Sport

More Shaq, this time endorsing a drink that's a bit more obscure.



And finally...

Snickers

After Michael Jordan came out with his own cologne he was just asking to be spoofed.



After looking at these videos, can you honestly say that NBA commercials are better today? I think not. There were many more that I wanted to include, but space concerns and/or lack of a YouTube video prevented it. Still, I'm already starting to feel nostalgic.

Special thanks to Dwindy1's Sports and Beer post, which inspired me to put together this idea I'd been considering for a while.