When Derrick Rose went down and grabbed his knee late in the Bulls 103-91 win over the Sixers, everyone in the NBA held their breath. Rose and the Bulls may not get the overall respect that they deserve but they don’t go unnoticed and Derrick Rose is one of the most popular players in the league.
But not everyone was upset that the young and talented career of the NBA’s most likable has been derailed.
Jason Petrie, who according to his LinkedIn page is the Nike Senior Footwear Designer and the creator of LeBron James’ shoe, tweeted moments after Rose’s injury that Rose made a mistake by not signing with the people who sign his paychecks.
Pooh is a reference to Derrick Rose as Pooh Bear, or Poohdini which are nicknames of Rose. But just because this is a Bulls site and we are covering this story that involved the idiot ramblings that crossed the line to a sensitive subject in Chicago it doesn’t mean we’re the only ones talking about it.
Yahoo!Sports jumped on this story as well with the exact same sentiment that we have.
Now why would some no-name designer be vomiting all over Twitter? Well it might have something to do with Derrick Rose endorsing Nike’s competition adidas.
I’m not an economics or a business major but I’m pretty sure that pissing off the greater NBA community isn’t a great way to up sales. Like I said before, Rose is the most likable player in the NBA. No matter who your allegiance is to (except maybe Heat fans) the greater NBA community loves Derrick Rose.
He’s a living highlight reel and he never tries to be more then he is, a basketball player. Yet Rose, who doesn’t try to be his own brand and isn’t concerned with talking about practice, has become everything he’s not trying to be by just keeping his mouth shut and doing his job. He’s an influence on people’s lives.
Well maybe not on Jason Petrie’s life since he did the opposite of keeping his mouth shut and proceeded to vomit all over himself on Twitter.
Now you’d think that this was one of those situations where a person who is generally jackass in real life but hides it on Twitter would retract something so distasteful, but not Mr. Petrie. After his tweet he responded to tweets that were calling him out on his crossing of the line with a snarky and lazy excuse which shows his true colors.
He didn’t apologize, he didn’t acknowledge that he offended a large fan base that Nike has a gigantic stake in (*cough* Chicago Bears Nike apparel *cough*). No instead Mr. Class barfed up a little bit more stupidity onto himself and Twitter.
But wait, the genius behind such masterpieces as ‘You Chose Wrong Pooh” and “Ya’ll take sh#t too seriously” had more brilliantly thought out things to say….
…and my personal favorite…
Clearly Mr. Petrie isn’t an English Major, but such observations are beside the point. The point is you don’t just say these things and not care. To quote Petrie, “they act like I gives a damn!”
Well we do and I’m not just speaking from the standpoint of my readers, who I WILL vehemently defend (Mr. Petrie had an exchange with one of our readers on his feed).
This isn’t about brands, this isn’t some East Coast-West Coast wannabe brand battle as much as Jason Petrie clearly thinks it is. This is about a young star who’s career is now on indefinite hold and some jackass who designs shoes for a living spouting his mouth off like he’s harder then nails despite hiding behind a Twitter account.
He even calls out the people tweeting him, calling him out and responds by calling them ‘tough guys’.
Come on Jason, I’m sure there were some ladies calling you out. And beyond that to sit there and call out those calling you out for trying to put on a tough guy facade is dripping with the type of irony that if I eat it all up I’ll be diabetic.
I’ve loved being a sports writer because I can cover the Bulls but in being a media member there is another tool at our disposal. That tool is the ability to bring to the attention of the general public stories like this, where some guy no one’s ever heard of and will quickly forget (especially after Nike fires him) spouts off about a sensitive subject in a distasteful manner.
It’s called shedding a light and Jason Petrie just got shed (and taken to one by Bulls fans).
I can’t hold Nike responsible for this, at least not for now, but when action is taken this story will go away, just like Mr. Petrie will. But there’s a lesson to be had in all this and we saw it during the hours leading up to the announcement Rose was out for the season.
Watch yourself on Twitter! Once you say something all it take i one retweet and it’s forever part of public record. So you can either be respectful and stay within the bounds of human decency, or you can stray beyond it, put your livelihood in jeopardy and make an ass of yourself like Jason Petrie has done.
Choice is yours.
You can follow Josh Hill on Twitter @jdavhill and you can also ‘Like’ us on Facebook here