HAWTHORNE,CA-Saturday night at the Air Hangar in Hawthorne, California, turned out to be pretty a special night for Nike Basketball and the Jordan Brand. Team USA basketball members were in the house.
The Drew League held court. Chance The Rapper performed. R & B crooner Chris Brown showed up and was a willing participant in the Air Show Dunk Contest.
All was good. As it turned out is was a darn good weekend overall for basketball fans who filtered down to Hawthorne Municipal Airport to take part in two days of basketball clinics and saw the release of Hyperdunk 2016 and Air Jordan XXXI basketball shoe brands. Fans attending the event got a head start to buy the Air Jordan XXXI.
Everybody else will have to wait until September before they are officially released.
That didn’t make the Saturday, July 23 event less exciting. The weekend was a big deal for Nike Basketball and the Jordan Brand as they presented the two-day “Unite for the Game and Country” fan event.
Before you even got to the basketball court, Nike Basketball and the Jordan Brand greeted you at the door with jerseys and shoes of former Team USA stars on full display in a silhouetted hallway splashed with images of current U.S. Olympic basketball players.
As you walk along admiring this fantastic display, you can’t help but notice the illuminating gleam of basketballs underneath your feet as you walk over the clear floor panels made to give this experience immediate impact. It works well because it gives off a breathtaking “wow” factor with just about each step you take.
The other impressive thing about the Nike Basketball and Jordan Brand setup is the private jet with the Air Jordan logo that was parked within a few feet of the hangar where two Drew League basketball games were played. On the opposite side, fans got an opportunity to get in on the interactive hyperdunk trailing experience.
Then there was some real basketball actually being played. In the nightcap contest, Los Angeles Lakers teammates Nick Young and Jordan Clarkson and “Problems took on Baron Davis and his undefeated BB4L squad. It was quite a game. For Clarkson, this contest would be redemption.
After putting on a buster show in his Week 7 showing at the Drew League, where he received a chorus of boos, Clarkson played liked the $50 million man that he is, scoring 33 points for “Problems.” Nothing went right for Clarkson in Week 7 as “Problems” dropped a 98-76 decision to James Harden and LAUNFD.
He played tentative, didn’t attack and looked overwhelmed by the style of play. It was a different story in Week 8. Getting in rhythm early, Clarkson finally showed off his inside/outside versatility game. Too bad it wasn’t quite enough to stop BB4L from recording another victory. Getting great play from Van Girard, BB4L defeated “Problems” 103-94.
That was just a prelude to what to come. The story of the night was when Team USA men and women basketball team members Jimmy Butler, Kyrie Irving, Elena Delle Donne and Tamika Catchings came and spoke to the gymnasium-pack crowd after Chance The Rapper did his thing on stage.
The real prize came at the end of the dunk contest in which young Michael Purdie claimed the top honor and took home an Aston Martin convertible as his reward. It was a special night indeed.
Dennis has covered and written about politics, crime, race, sports, and entertainment. Dennis currently covers the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, and Olympic sports. Dennis is the editor of News4usonline.com and serves as the publisher of the Compton Bulletin newspaper. He earned a journalism degree from Howard University. Email Dennis at dfreeman@news4usonline.com