For many hard-core basketball fans, few waits are as interminable as the wait between a short conference finals series and the NBA Finals proper.
That’s what happened this year, when the Dallas Mavericks won the Western Conference Finals in five games and the Boston Celtics won the Eastern Conference Finals in an even quicker four games.
That left a full week between the conclusion of the conference finals and the start of the Finals. That means no NBA games for a week — a stark contrast to the beginning of the playoffs, where there were multiple games on a day.
While there are no NBA games, there are WNBA games, however — including some chippy ones — to fill the void, if you’re truly hankering for some of Dr. James Naismith’s greatest creation.
One would think that sports apparel conglomerate Nike would know about those WNBA games, given the sizable investment the company has made into various star players with shoe deals.
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One would think wrong.
Nike took to social media platform X to post: “And that’s that … a week without hoops [shaking my head]” along with an upside-down smiling face emoji after the Mavericks eliminated the Minnesota Timberwolves Thursday.
Have you watched any WNBA games this season?
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(The NBA Finals begin next Thursday, June 6.)
Perhaps realizing the inadvertent — but still vicious — shot that Nike just took at the WNBA, the post was swiftly deleted.
Much to the chagrin of Nike, however, the internet has a curious propensity of screen capturing everything.
Nike posted this in the middle of the WNBA season😭 pic.twitter.com/6OCRjAh2q4
— Hoops (@HoopMixOnly) May 31, 2024
“Nike posted this in the middle of the WNBA season,” a popular basketball content creator posted to X, alongside a screen shot of the now-deleted post.
Another X user pointed out the absurdity of how close the “a week without hoops” post was to a different X post celebrating the launch of New York Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu’s new shoes.
Literally two posts apart lol#WNBA pic.twitter.com/XGYnGcN5V7
— Geoff Magliocchetti (@GeoffJMags) May 31, 2024
The errant post is a particularly egregious error for Nike, given the historic $28 million shoe deal the company signed with Indiana Fever superstar rookie Caitlin Clark
For Nike, this blunder, while likely small in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t help fight back against the stigma that the WNBA is irrelevant.
The league is as popular as it has ever been, due in no small part to an influx of bona fide rookie collegiate women’s stars like Clark, former LSU standout Angel Reese and ex-Stanford star Cameron Brink.
And yet, even Nike saw fit to crack a joke about how there are no “hoops” going on — right in the middle of the WNBA season. Accidental or not, it’s not the best look for a company that needs all the positive PR it can get.
