Jumpman

I find it interesting that Georgetown and Houston are among the schools. Jordan has Final Four history with both.

Of course, that doesn’t explain Michigan, Oklahoma, Florida or Marquette. Except maybe all of them have been to multiple Final Fours?

North Carolina 20
Michigan 8
Houston, Florida, Georgetown, Oklahoma 5
Marquette 3

There are 34 schools with at least three Final Fours. Seven of them are Jumpman.

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Believe Wade is the Marquette/ Jordan connection.

I’m kind of thinking Wade is our Jordan connection too… he knows Sampson so that might have gotten our foot in the door.

I’m still waiting for a few more schools to be added in the coming weeks/months, because it does feel a little too good to be true to be the only one added to that list of schools.

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Jordan has a lot of respect for The Dream, and as I recall Jordan has even indicated that he was the best center ever and even had him on his personal all time 5 man squad. Highly doubt that had any impact on UH being chosen, but it certainly didn’t hurt.

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Side tangent…Dream was almost traded to Chicago for Pippen in '90 or '91. If memory serves (ha, I’m old), Dream was disgruntled here with the organization and the trade was floated out there. This was right before Rudy T was coach. Imagine Jordan and Dream on the same team.

What’s the Wade/ Sampson connection? Player I would think to maybe getting us in the door is Chris Paul. He’s also a Jordan Brand guy and plays for the Rockets.

The Jordan Brand connection with Coach Sampson is Blake Griffin which explains OU as well.

Also, Dwyane Wade is no longer a Jordan Brand athlete, he has had his own deal with Lining since 2012, but he probably was the connection with Marquette to get the ball running when he was with Jordan.

Ya, I even think he was accused of faking an injury or reporting an existing one was worse than it was. I can’t recall if it was the eye injury or a leg injury like a hamstring or something.

There’s also the rumored Rockets-Trailblazers deal from the '84 draft where the Blazers were going to trade Drexler and the 2nd overall pick for Ralph Sampson and Rodney McCray I believe. Rockets would have then drafted Olajuwon 1st and Jordan 2nd. Imagine Hakeem, Jordan, and Drexler all on the same team.

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That was more than just an idle rumor at time. The Lakers had James Worthy and Byron Scott on the table for Ralph after his All-star MVP performance. Ralph Sampson was the most hyped college player since Wilt Chamberlain at the time. Ray Patterson was our GM at the time. Ray had ALL the leverage and whiffed miserably on that deal by keeping Sampson in place. If Darryl Morey was our GM at that time, we would have at least 10 championships by now because not only would he have taken that Portland deal, but he would have leverage those guys for future all-stars before they got long in the tooth. He’d kept that gravy train rolling. Lol!!

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It’s gotta be the shoes!

Really hope they make a UH shoe like the top 3 for UH fans. I would buy a pair to use as my game day shoes.

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I heard him say that as well Carlos. I actually think the fact that he like both Hakeem and Clyde could be a reason we were chosen…but again, that is just an opinion!

If Nike informed Coach Sampson last November, then I think maybe his and the entire basketball program’s efforts during Hurricane Harvey and the massive, positive publicity we got from that may have had something to do with UH getting chosen? Also, Chris Paul, who is a regular at our games and in our practice facility is a Jordan brand athlete and may have lobbied for us. Who knows!

Whoops! I meant Paul in my post, not Wade. I should check back more often.

And San Diego State joins the Jumpman family.

Kawhi Leonard connection? Jordan brand is trying to extend his show contract now while he is out and its a bearish market.

Bringing on his school cant hurt.
His sneaks.

OT…lol at Kawhi hosing the Spurs. He must not get along with Pop.

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UH Hoop getting their first round of Jumpman gear.
Public should get it in the fall (based on rollouts at other schools)

https://twitter.com/laurenEsampson/status/1003439194037989376

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