Empoword

Part Three: Research and Argumentation 405 sneaker contracts have become more lucrative and incentivized.” This has gotten so extreme that in the same offseason that LeBron signed a one-year contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers, he signed a lifetime deal with Nike worth more than half a billion (Strauss). ESPN Radio host Bomani Jones even argues that, because of this, many players’ first loyalties lie with the shoe companies instead of their teams: “your primary employer is who pays you the most money.... LeBron was Team Nike before he was a Cleveland Cavalier or a member of the Miami Heat or any of those things. We contextualize guys around the teams they play for because that’s the relevant variable for the kind of work that we do” (Strauss). In fact, Jones and Curry got into a minor spat on Twitter when Curry saw some jabs that Jones had poked at his Under Armour shoes. Curry took it very seriously and personally, said Jones, pointing out that “there doesn’t seem to be much space in his mind between himself and Under Armour” (Strauss). This is why many athletes, the Balls foremost among them, are becoming more and more concerned with their role in crafting their own brand and how it is all integrated into their overall image as public figures: “Curry and James aren’t just salvos in a battle between brands; it’s a personal war.... It’s a fight for something even bigger than a basketball career” (Strauss). While this is all nice and well for players at the height of their basketball powers, LaVar is endeavoring to claim agency for himself and his family before any of them have stepped on a professional basketball court, a fact few critics have failed to point out. They have not earned this yet. Nobody’s ever tried to forge their own lane without already being great. But maybe this is not the case. In fact, LeBron began breaking out of the corporation-defined mold after just one year in the league, albeit an all-time great year. After his rookie year, “Mr. James did the almost unthinkable in the sometimes stuffy world of sports marketing — he handed his off-the-court businesses and marketing over to” his childhood friends Maverick Carter, Rich Paul, and Randy Mims (Thomaselli). LeBron was searching for the same self-definition that the Balls are now. Looking back, LeBron recalls, “I wanted to wake up in the morning and say I did it my way. I’m not being cocky and saying it’s my way or the highway; I just wanted to make a decision” (Thomaselli). It is nearly the same exact notion that LaVar and Lonzo are currently pushing more than a decade later. At the time, LeBron “and his friends also