Can Luka Dončić Break the American Ceiling?

The Slovenian might become America's biggest star

Luka Dončić was brilliant for the Lakers on Tuesday night, and during TNT broadcast ad breaks, a new Jordan Brand commercial for his sneaker was shown to millions. In a serendipitous convergence of sports reality and marketing art, “The Trial of Luka Dončić” played concurrent with the Laker season enduring its own trial of sorts.

The long director’s cut version of the ad (posted above) doesn’t totally work, at least not for me. But the shorter snippets that played during the game? Those were Luka Magic, if you will. The “Bad Luka” slogan captures and accentuates an emerging persona. Dončić really is a bad boy, an enfant terrible on the court reminiscent of John McEnroe.

It’s not that his constant complaining and taunting are good qualities necessarily. I wouldn’t want them in the average co-worker. But he’s just such a prodigy, operating with such bravado, and his florid temper happens to be indivisible from undeniable greatness. It’s part of the basketball show, like how Gordon Ramsay’s tantrums were part of his cooking shows. Jordan Brand has made a choice to embrace a difficult authenticity rather than run from it.

That’s a great path, in my opinion. Authenticity resonates, even and especially this superficially unseemly version of it.