Retired tennis player and former World No.1 John McEnroe was recently featured in the NBA's new 'Playoff mode' commercial.
The NBA playoffs begin on Saturday April 15, and the league organizers released a new commercial to hype the post-season tournament. Featured in the video are several prominent basketball stars, past and present, including Julius Randle, Donovan Mitchell, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Charles Barkley.
Seven-time Grand Slam champion McEnroe is also featured in the video, alongside ESPN analyst Malika Andrews, actor Terry Crews and even the Sacramento Kings beam.
McEnroe has been an ardent basketball fan, and even once expressed his desire to become "the next Michael Jordan" during his teenage years.
"I was more of like a team sport, I just happened to be better at this sport," said the retired American in an interview with Showtime Basketball last year. "I gravitated more towards that because obviously, I thought I was going to be the next Michael Jordan and it didn’t turn out that way."
Growing up in a household where soccer was king, my earliest memories are filled with chants from packed stadiums and the rhythm of a ball being passed across neighborhood streets. But somewhere along the way, the quiet elegance and raw emotion of tennis pulled me in. What began as a curiosity became a lifelong passion; not just for the sport itself, but for the stories it tells: of grit, of heartbreak, of improbable comebacks and human resilience.
As a tennis writer, I bring the observational lens of someone who didn’t grow up in the sport, but fell in love with it as an outsider; a perspective that lets me see both its technical beauty and its emotional depth. Over the years working with TennisUpToDate, I’ve had the privilege of reaching more than 3.5 million readers worldwide, with one of my features ranking among the site’s top three articles.
With a background in storytelling and a creative mind always searching for meaning beyond the scoreboard, I aim to craft narratives that go deeper than results and rankings. Whether it’s a rising star breaking through or a veteran fighting off Father Time, I try to capture the heartbeat behind the headlines.
New NBA “Playoff Mode” commercial features Julius Randle, Donovan Mitchell, Jaren Jackson Jr, John McEnroe, Charles Barkley, Malika Andrews, Jamal Murray and the Kings beam