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Welcome to this week’s edition of The Baseline!

This is your weekly blueprint for basketball culture: brand insights, marketing strategy, creator tools, and business resources.

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CREATOR BLUEPRINT

Lethal Shooter might be the greatest shooter of all time—or at least you’d think he was from his social content.

He frequently releases videos with multi-million views, but his latest campaign has completely taken over the sports internet.

He’s even transcended basketball, as NFL teams have caught on to his trend.

When I worked with him on a SLAM and Crocs campaign, I didn’t understand it.

But 60+ million viral gummy bear views later, I UNDERSTAND IT NOW.

Here’s the Creator Blueprint behind Lethal Shooter’s success:

First, he’s teaching a masterclass in brand messaging.

His viral moment right now is rooted in a perfectly crafted tagline that’s catchy, memorable, and tailor made for captions and comments.

Plus, he’s a risk taker — willing to light himself on fire or shoot through metal spikes to stop your scroll with a viral stunt.

On top of that, he’s a creative writer and actor, directing his own skits made for short form consumption.

And not to mention, he knows social collabs are huge growth drivers.

He’s created content with the biggest names in the world like like DJ Khaled and Drake.

Even more impressive, Lethal Shooter never quit.

He’s living proof that consistency is key.

From playing D1, to training NBA athletes, to putting out content every single day—Lethal Shooter has never stopped putting in the work.

Which is why he has his own Jordan Brand sneaker and NBA2K character.

Simply put, Lethal Shooter’s Creator Blueprint shows that:

Creativity + Consistency + Collaboration = Winning Formula.

FREE THROWS

Sharing the tools and resources that I’m using this week:

📉 Downdetector - When Instagram or your other go-to tools and software go down, don’t panic and think it’s your shaky Wi-Fi; just check their real-time outage monitoring.

🧰 Notion - This is my central hub for everything—work, personal, family, and more—from content calendars to project management, to-do lists, databases, campaign briefs, and even publishing websites.

📢 AnswerThePublic - Direct social listening that provides instant search insights from the minds of consumers online.

FAST BREAK

Here’s what you missed this week:

9️⃣ Bronny James has attracted significant attention to the league, with his jersey selling over 500,000 units since his debut (at an average price of $100/per jersey = over $50 million in revenue!)

✅ A'ja Wilson signed a 6-year extension with Nike as she prepares to debut her signature sneaker next season.

⭐️ The NBA announced a new format for the All-Star Game: a four-team mini-tournament consisting of three games.

👟 James Harden showcased his Adidas Vol. 9 sneakers all week and then finally debuted them on the court with a 40-ball.

👑 LeBron made his return to the court, and social media after a month-long break.

⁠💸 Caitlin Clark’s rookie card sold at an auction for $243,850, setting the record for the highest-selling WNBA basketball card.

🐍 CNN is releasing a three-part docuseries on Kobe in January that’ll provide an intimate look at Kobe’s journey to greatness.

🇨🇦 The WNBA announces its first international regular season game in August 2025, with the Seattle Storm taking on the Atlanta Dream in Vancouver.

🤳 The NBA assembled the avengers of creators and brought their 100+ MILLION followers to Vegas this weekend for the Emirates NBA Cup.

💨 Kelsey Plum launched her Signature Toro Cigar in partnership with Kingsmaker Cigars, and it is available at premium tobacco retailers across the country.

🤖 Toyota’s CUE6 robot set a world record for the longest basketball shot made by an AI-powered humanoid.

💰 Unrivaled, the new 3×3 women’s basketball league co-founded by Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, has secured $28 million in Series A funding, including Giannis Antetokounmpo, Dawn Staley, JuJu Watkins and Michael Phelps.

POST-GAME

That’s all for this week.

Hope you enjoyed reading The Baseline today.

If you have any questions, ideas, or opportunities to work together—just shoot me a quick email and let’s chat!

- Jeff Chen | 🏀💡👨🏻‍💻