Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 at 5:32 pm  |  13 responses

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Ballin’

Converse brings ballers to the playground: interviews with God Shammgod, Dr. J and more.

by Ben Osborne / @bosborne17

I’m happy to say that I’ve felt a lot of love from Converse the last few days.

First, they asked me to be part of their new TV commercial, in part due to my status as a ‘culturally relevant’ individual (their words, not mine). Then they let me know that SLAM would be one of just three media outlets allowed on set to interview the basketball stars of the commercial: Converse endorsers Carlos Arroyo, Julius Erving, God Shammgod and Adrian Walton.

The end result is that I spent 12 hours in a New York City playground yesterday, switching hats between ‘actor’ (following instructions from director Antoine Fuqua, amongst others) and journalist, as I had a Flip and squeezed in quick interviews with the players on set. I should add that rapper Jim Jones, two-time champion of Converse’s Band of Ballers event is a big part of the ad, too. As best I know, the ad will start airing in late-september and we’ll air it (and any other video converse provides us with) as soon as we have it. I have no speaking part and will probably appear only in passing, so my cultural relevance may not increase too much, but it was still a great experience.

For now, check the interviews I did and stay tuned for more…