Schedule releases for major sports leagues have become tentpole events during the offseason of each respective sport. A few months ago we saw the Tennessee Titans go viral for their schedule release video, which featured casual fans trying to guess the names of teams by their logos.
With the schedule for the 2023-2024 NBA regular season dropping today, there was bound to be at least one team that stole the show. The Brooklyn Nets actually copied the Titans’ idea, but a different Eastern Conference team took the headlines.
Enter the Chicago Bulls.
The video is sure to tug at the heart strings of anyone who had a GameBoy growing up, as it features a Pokemon style art direction with plenty of callbacks to the original games.
Chicago Bulls use Pokemon style video to announce 2023-2024 schedule
There are several references to star players throughout, with the Bulls mascot (“Benny”), Zach Lavine (“Flight 8”) and DeMar DeRozan (“Deebo”) dueling them.
The Battles
The first battle features San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, who summons Victor Wembanyama (“Wemby”). The 7’5″ rookie didn’t even fit in the screen.
The second duel is against “The Joker”, the nickname of Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, who is coming off an MVP and championship season.
The third and final battle brings out LeBron James, with a succinct code name of “Bron”.
At the end of all of the fights, we can see the date when the Bulls will play against those teams.
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