OT - The decline of And1 and streetball culture

[The_Ghost_of_JB]

While these guys are talented and had skills it was just too much of a gimmick. I suppose you can relate it to wrestling. Yeah wrestling is fake but 90% of the stuff wrestlers do in the ring would not work in real life. Same with and 1. Half of the stuff these guys do would never work in organized ball. I think people just lost interest.

[suckfish]

It was new and it was raw. Then it got old and AND1 started to sell out. We went from the concrete to arenas and that's when it sort of died. I remember when the challengers team led by Corey Williams came in and destroyed the tour team by like 40 because they played real basketball instead of messing around.

It was really just a phase.

Streetball isn't dead though. It just went back to being street basketball. Basketball outside. Not the circus act.

[mitrandil20]

AND1 started out well, but then fell off because they played in gyms and not on the assfault anymore. No more millions of people. No more pets.

[TaylorMonkey]

I find it ironic that And1 promotes street ball where there are no actual And 1's.

[Flash Falcon X]

And1 basketball is actually the reason why I first got into basketball, not the NBA.

2002 was when Streetball got mainstream because the And1 crew first got a TV show on ESPN. The entire world got to see how they play it it was something fresh and new.

Then in 2003 they got even more bigger, with the team finally starting to play in NBA arenas for their tour.

2004 and so on is when it first started to die down.

It was just a trend in basketball. Just like how there are trends in music and fashion. Crunk music from 2004 got boring and eventually evolved into Trap music. XXL tall trees and jerseys turned into shirts that actually fit.

Also, Hot Sauce was one of the biggest stars in And 1 and he also started to fall off because he eventually stopped playing on the tour.

Some hype for things just die down. It's natural. And 1 Streetball was cool at first, especially to little kids, but over time it just gets boring.

And 1 basketball was like the gateway drug to NBA basketball.

EDIT: someone made a good point about how the And 1 team would get beat by teams who play regular basketball.

In the beginning, the And 1 team was supposedly the "best players not in the league".

They were supposed to be unbeatable and for all those years they never had a lost. Finally in 2003, they got their first loss in Oakland and the whole team was arguing. Then the very next day on the tour, they lost to LA.

It showed that they weren't all that great and could easily be beaten by any team. The tricks got old, the team started losing to players who actually can ball, etc.

Over time there was just nothing new about And 1 anymore.

[tms386]

LOL you must be joking. Whether it's Adidas, Nike, And1 or your typical Payless shoe, they all cost a couple dollars to make. A shoe is a shoe. The rest of it goes into marketing. The $100m contract Lebron and D Rose get is paid by you, the consumer.

Uh, no. I used to think the same, then I made the connection between why I couldn't run down the court without pain and my cheap $40 FILAs.

You mean the ones Stackhouse played with in the NBA? I find it hard to believe you had pain wearing cheap shoes but they suddenly disappeared with more expensive shoes. If shoes really did matter that much, D Wade would not go from Jordan brand to a Chinese brand that you can't even buy in America, especially since he's so injury prone.

The shoes the pros wear are not the same as the ones made for mass market, even if they are the same model. A lot of them are made with an "already broken in" feel to them for professional athletes.

[Scubetrolis]

I didnt read through all the posts, so forgive me if this has been brought up. The obvious answer is youtube killed it.

[EGarrett]

Let me say also that the culture was already changing around And1, which they could've picked up from the rabid popularity of The Professor. Not necessarily because he was white ("White Chocolate" is also obviously white and not nearly as popular), but because Professor was so non-street and seemed like such a genuinely nice guy. It was becoming less about acting tough. They didn't quite catch on to that wave.

[Dominator83]

Could say the same thing about EA BIG's NBA Street franchise and Sprite Remix.

Marketing.

NBA street vol 2 was bad a great game. Fun as hell to play. Then they overdid that and tried coming out with an NFL street and that game was awful

[Illmatic21]

That's what I remember about it. It was entertaining stuff but seemed like Globe Trotter style entertainment, not actual basketball.

I think the real end came with the realization that these guys couldn't play. Like the hip hop culture the whole scene was smoke and mirrors based off playground legends. A few decades bakc Kareem and Dr. J were playing in the parks against guys good enough to be in the league. And1 was capitalizing on the idea that these undiscovered greats were out there. Today, the guys that really can play make it.

I can guarantee you they can play. The only thing that's not really basketball is the carrying and tricks. But outside of that, most of those guys can kill more than 90% of the people in the world that play basketball.

I think the appeal for And1 died for me when you started having so many guys coming out of the woodwork and becoming legends. The original "cast" of And1 streetball legends had a certain aura about them. When there was a transition to sort of the next gen of streetball legends, they needed to be hyped up more so as to be worthy replacements.

Plus, you never got to see them play in an organized, legit league against legit players. I bet if some of the And1 guys got invited to say the NBA Summer League and dominated, it would have added a lot more legitimacy or at least provide more reason to respect them even more.

I remember they used to televise those Rucker League games on NBATV. That was pretty fun. But a lot of the And1 guys didn't participate. That would have been awesome.

This is true. As a kid, I remember when the original era of And1 legends were phased out (guys like Hot Sauce, Main Event, Alimoe - who actually passed earlier this year RIP) and they brought in the second class of players like The Professor, etc that was when I began to lose interest.

And I think most people kept rooting for at least one of these guys to make the league, but other than Skip who was an OG it never happened. That was kind of disappointing.

[WinisKing]

AND1 started out well, but then fell off because they played in gyms and not on the assfault anymore. No more millions of people. No more pets.

Yeah what happened to this?! I was expecting to see some fierce battle between And1 ballers and the elementals

[Canada_7]

And as a small white kid from the suburbs, those AND 1 t shirts with the and trash talk sayings on them were SO FREAKIBG LAME!!!

Nike still does those shirts with the trash-talk phrases. Though it makes me laugh when a fat dude or someone that can't play wears them .

[zjl3]

Those kids that wore And1 got smart. They realized that the players played no defense, and they weren't anywhere near as good as the guys who wore Adidas and Nike. Baggy clothing became outdated and the internet took away any motivation to watch the Mixtape tour or attend a live show. Eventually NBA players (most of them) moved away from wearing And1. It was never supposed to last, but they made one heck of a dent while they were relevant.

[DRoseCantStop]

And as a small white kid from the suburbs, those AND 1 t shirts with the and trash talk sayings on them were SO FREAKIBG LAME!!!

Nike still does those shirts with the trash-talk phrases. Though it makes me laugh when a fat dude or someone that can't play wears them .

"GOT NEXT!"

[MrCheerios]

I have no idea what the appeal was in the first place. A friend showed me an And1 mixtape way back in the day. It felt like watching five dunk contests in a row. It was non-stop flash, with no substance. I was bored to tears.

[jc23]

best thing about And 1 was those T-Shirts they use to make in the late 90's.



but now looking back they seem corny

[TankCommander]

As others have mentioned there was a close tie between hip-hop and basketball in the late 90's early 2000's. Go read any SLAM magazine from this time and it's riddled with hip-hop references and rap culture.

i.e.

Streetball was an extension of rap since it had many of the same qualities; it was underground, against "mainstream"/organized basketball, it was raw, gritty etc.

AND1 was also associated almost exclusively with basketball. Nike, Adidas etc all have much more diversification in terms of the products they produce and sports they are affiliated with.

I think it was a blip in time and the timing was perfect where hip-hop exploded and basketball was looking for a new identity after MJ retired (and AI was the face of this new NBA for a while).

As a side note, hip-hop started becoming garbage around 2002 so that might have something to do with it too

Edit: This was Nike's attempt to get in on the streetball craze

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i-4rn5xCnU[/youtube]

confirmed to being someone who knows nothing of the genre

Hip Hop at the moment is at its strongest in terms of quality and diversity

[Langdon Alger]

I had these shoes in baby-blue, back in highschool (2001-2002 not sure about the exact year). They were freakin head turners. The ladies loved them as well. I got a lot of play out of them (not actual basketball play), looked great with jeans. Wish I could find the picture with them in baby-blue.

[VC-INJURY]

confirmed to being someone who knows nothing of the genre

Hip Hop at the moment is at its strongest in terms of quality and diversity

lmao hip-hop today is at its worst ever. You are probably young so I will forgive you for saying that.

If look at how hip-hop evolved in say just the 6 year period between 1992-1998 it is amazing. The way it progressed, and all the different artists that came out at that time, in all different genres with so many different styles is incredible in retrospect. Look at hip-hop in just the past 6 years and very little has changed.

The fact that today's hip-hop relies on 40 year old versions of Jay-Z and Eminem to "save hip-hop" is a testament to how bad it is today and how good it was in the '90s. The "heavy-hitters" of today can't hold a flame to those of the 90's.

Outkast, Nas, Biggie, Pac, Mos Def, Eminem, Dre, The Pharcyde, The Wu & a million other stars >>>>>>>>>>>>>Drake, Macklemore, J. Cole, Wale, Mac Miller, Kendrick (just jacks Andre 3000's style/flow but is still very solid), Lil' Wayne, A$AP etc.

Lauryn Hill & Missy Elliot are better MC's that almost every major rapper today.

Edit: Proof hip-hop and rap today is atrocious? Psy's Gangnam Style being #1 on Billboard Hot 100 Rap.

[sca]

in the REALGM world its been quite the opposite. Theres been a pretty extreme rise in AND1 activity around here over the past few months

Wow, the most AND1'd post that I'll ever witness