New Anthony Edwards Ad Takes Shots at Drake: ‘A Certain Bandwagon Fan Is Facing FOMO & Buried in Lawsuits’
Anthony Edwards’s new adidas AE 3 advert, featuring comedian Hasan Minhaj, takes aim at Drake amid an ongoing exchange of jokes over basketball shoes. It extends a rivalry involving Edwards, Kevin Durant and Drake, with the advert answering a jab Drake made in a Nike campaign.
Minhaj calls Drake a “bandwagon fan” who is “buried in lawsuits”, alongside jokes about LeBron James and Nike’s stock price. In June, Drake appeared in a Nike advert for Durant’s purple KD 19 shoes and joked that only four children in Minnesota wanted Edwards’s purple sneakers. Edwards had already parodied that advert in a PrizePicks commercial earlier this month, which featured a box marked “RETURN TO TORONTO”.
In short
- Hasan Minhaj’s adidas advert takes a swipe at Drake.
- The exchange follows Drake’s joke about Edwards’s sneakers.
- Edwards had also parodied Durant’s Nike advert.
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Supporters may see the advert as ordinary sports-marketing banter: Drake’s Nike campaign had already mocked Edwards’s shoes, and Edwards is entitled to answer in kind. The jokes turn a celebrity shoe rivalry into entertaining promotion and can be understood as playful rather than a serious personal attack.
The case against
Critics may argue that bringing Drake’s lawsuits into a sneaker advert shifts the exchange from teasing about basketball and shoes to using legal troubles as a punchline. Even in a reciprocal publicity campaign, that can seem needlessly personal and may encourage audiences to treat unresolved disputes as material for ridicule.
Explained simply
Anthony Edwards and Kevin Durant are NBA players with competing signature shoe deals: Edwards’s AE line is made by adidas, while Durant’s KD line is made by Nike. Their adverts sometimes use jokes about rival players and teams to attract attention.
Drake is a Canadian musician and a prominent supporter of the Toronto Raptors, though he has also publicly backed other teams and players. Hasan Minhaj is a comedian who appears in adverts and uses humour to comment on popular culture. The back-and-forth matters because star endorsements can help brands draw attention to their shoes, while the jokes connect basketball, music and advertising.
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