Film director Spike Lee is one of the world’s most famous basketball fans, and he proved why with his choice of attire for the NBA Finals.
Lee, a multi-time Academy Award and Emmy Award winner who was also nominated for a Grammy, was spotted courtside an hour before the Warriors and Celtics tipped off for the first game of the championship series.
It was hard to miss Lee, who was wearing a beautiful white suit, a white hat, and large white glasses. However, without a doubt, the most iconic part of his look was his chain.
Here is how it all looked for Lee on ESPN’s pre-game broadcast:
Can I just say I'm obsessed with the Mars Blackmon that Spike Lee is wearing to the NBA Finals? https://t.co/Yybn0AqbmM pic.twitter.com/hLCQ2XwoIb
— Bryan Kalbrosky (@BryanKalbrosky) June 3, 2022
The chain, which is large enough that you can probably see it from Mars, is a tribute to Lee’s first film, She’s Gotta Have It (1986).
In the iconic Brooklyn movie, which was his directorial debut, Lee chose to cast himself in the supporting role of Mars Blackmon, who is obsessed with basketball.
The original movie was so successful that Lee, as Blackmon, went on to regularly co-star in commercials alongside Michael Jordan. You can watch those (most remembered for the line “it’s gotta be the shoes!”) commercials, which led to a release of the Jordan Mars 270 sneakers, here.
As an aside: Decades later, in the Netflix rendition of the show, Blackmon was portrayed by Anthony Ramos (who previously starred alongside Lin-Manuel Miranda in the original cast of Hamilton on Broadway).
So, in case you weren’t sure why you saw a picture of Lee repping a planet around his neck, now you have an answer!
