“Am I a Bad Person?”: Kevin Durant Seeks Validation From Nike but It’s All a Marketing Gimmick (Here’s Why)

The Paris Olympics are kicking off from July 28 and guess who just launched their marketing campaign for the competing athletes. Well, it’s none other than the sports footwear and apparel company Nike. They just launched their Olympics campaign with a video and tagline, “Am I a bad person?” We’ll dive deep into it later, but Team USA player Kevin Durant, who had been out of the team till now due to injury and attended the practice today, shared something cryptic on his Instagram that seemed otherwise to the NBA community initially.

Durant shared a picture of himself on IG story carrying around the ball in the USA jersey with the caption asking Nike, “tell me, Am I a bad person?????“ However, in the next post, he presented the new model of his shoes from Nike as the company launched a new design for KD fans titled Nike KD 17 “Easy Money Sniper.” It features new colorways, which are speculated to be released for the next NBA season.

Looking back at Durant’s IG story now, he was using Nike’s Olympic campaign tagline as a gimmick rather than implying any sour relationship.

Durant’s latest collaboration with Nike, KD 17 “Easy Money Sniper” does not feature flamboyant designs with flowers and emojis in bold shades. Rather, the latest designs seem to be focusing more on the balance of colors. With a natural green earth shade, along with rose crimson, Max Plus TPU swells carry the regular theme of the Nike KD shoe line. Also, the company has altered the typical KD emblem with the “Easy” symbol on the shoe flap.

Although it is comprehensible why Kevin Durant sought validation from Nike on Instagram, let’s take a look at what’s special about Nike’s Summer Olympics campaign.

Nike’s Summer Olympics campaign compels Kevin Durant to seek validation!

Nike figured out the perfect time to release their marketing campaign with the Olympics a little more than a week away. The Oregon-based company launched its campaign with a video featuring the athletes associated with it. Highlighting their passion, it started with the focused eyes of a girl and a statement in the background, assumably the tagline, “Am I a bad person?” The whole snippet revolved around legendary USA athletes and the spirit that carries them to perform better every day.

The video justified why it’s not bad to be bad to lift yourself to the paramount of athletic prowess. There is nothing wrong in putting everything on the line because as per Nike’s IG post, “Winning Isn’t For Everyone. It’s for those who do whatever it takes.” At the end of the video, the VO artist asked the audience if they have the audacity to be a bad person to go beyond the excellence.

Ultimately, Nike tried to connect with their audience, starting with the adrenaline-rushing snippet. Therefore, Kevin Durant, being a Nike-associated athlete, asked the question on his IG story. What’s your take on it? Are you a bad person? Let’s continue this chain in the comments.