Anthony Edwards got there first. Earlier this year, he trolled his rivals- Victor Wembanyama included in an Adidas campaign that made the 7-foot-4 Frenchman fair game for marketing departments everywhere. Edwards’ jab proved the territory was open; AND1 just took the next shot. Now it’s Jose Alvarado’s turn to put Wemby in the crosshairs, and the brand didn’t even need to dig for material- his own Finals tape did the work for them.

AND1’s ad uses the caption “Imagine being tall for no reason” over footage of Wembanyama getting outplayed by the much shorter Knicks guard. A companion post swaps the line for “Some people see 7’4″. Jose sees a mismatch.”

Given the literal foot-and-a-half height gap between them, the joke writes itself- the campaign isn’t clever so much as accurate, which is what makes it land.

The timing matters too. Alvarado signed with AND1 just days after winning it all with New York, becoming one of the first AND1 athletes to win a title since Ben Wallace in 2004. He wore the brand’s Mad Game Pro player exclusives throughout the Knicks’ championship run- so by the time the ad dropped, he wasn’t a new face the company was introducing. He was already the story, and AND1 simply pointed a camera at it.

That story includes some real edge. After Wembanyama’s pull-down tackle on Jalen Brunson went unpunished in Game 3, Alvarado wasn’t shy about it:

“I think that’s not basketball,” Alvarado said, via Zach Braziller of the New York Post. “That’s something that they gotta look at. But he got away with one. That’ll be the last one.”

He made good on it. In Game 4, guarding Wembanyama in the post, Alvarado swiped the Spurs star’s leg and put him on the floor, then stepped over him without breaking stride. It was the kind of moment that doesn’t show up cleanly in a box score but explains exactly why AND1 wanted him on the roster.

AND1 has no history of needling Wembanyama or Alvarado before this. That’s sort of the point. The brand built its name in the 90s and 2000s on streetball irreverence, And1 Mixtape Tour stuff, ankle-breakers and trash talk over polish and a 5-foot-10 bench guard who just bullied a unicorn center in the NBA Finals is exactly the kind of underdog chaos that was built to sell.

Alvarado didn’t need a backstory with the brand. He embodied the pitch the moment the footage existed.

The average of 4.2 points, 1.2 assists, and 1.4 rebounds in 9.5 minutes per game might look ordinary, but the story is beyond the box score. His intense defense (posting an outstanding 103 defensive rating) and critical, timely plays were monumental in securing the Knicks’ first NBA championship in 53 years. In Game 1, he stepped up in the first half with 7 points and 4 boards in just 11 minutes of action.

“A lot of people didn’t believe in me and now I’m a champion,” Alvarado said after the win.

The series highlight was when he scored 8 fourth-quarter points, including two massive three-pointers, to complete a 29-point comeback—the largest in NBA Finals history. Naturally, AND1 will use the hype, and they are not the only ones to troll the Spurs star.

Wembanyama trolling didn’t start, or end, with a sneaker brand

The Knicks’ championship parade leaned into it just as hard. “Wemby sucks!” chants broke out, a Wemby doll got tossed around the crowd, and a crying Wembanyama cutout made the rounds. None of it was orchestrated. All of it gave AND1 a ready-made audience that already knew the joke before the ad ran.

In his debut NBA Finals, the Spurs star couldn’t get his team over the line. But Victor Wembanyama stated he’s going to use this Finals experience as a learning lesson:

“This is the biggest learning moment of my life,” Wembanyama said after Game 5. “This has been a hell of a year in terms of experience. I don’t think we could’ve learned more and gained more experience in one season, one playoff run… It’s been full of lessons.”

That’s the honest, mature answer. It’s also exactly the kind of quote that won’t make the trolling stop. At 22, in his first Finals, Wembanyama just became the most marketable punchline in basketball, whether he asked for it or not. AND1 noticed first. It won’t be the brand that notices last.