SAN ANTONIO — On your left we have a bottle of Powerade, endorsed by LeBron James. It’s supposedly the stuff he drinks to stay hydrated. (Cue laughter.)
On your right we have a bottle of Gatorade, endorsed by Dwyane Wade. When it was mentioned Friday in a question to LeBron James, he refused to speak of the product by name.
Then again, the word “Powerade” never came out of James’ mouth, either, a day after “Crampgate” and the broken air conditioning system at the AT&T Center became the dominant storyline of Game 1 of the 2014 NBA Finals.
Never mind that Tim Duncan shot 9-of-10, Tiago Splitter shot 5-for-6 and Boris Diaw piled up 10 rebounds and six assists while posting an unfathomable plus-30 in his 33 minutes of action as San Antonio rode a dominant and brilliant fourth-quarter shooting performance to a 110-95 victory.
Hydration was the thing people wanted to talk about the day after. Specifically, why James was the only player who cramped up in the hot, muggy air inside the arena during Game 1.
“Crampgate” was the word Miami coach Erik Spoelstra used to describe it, and there was skepticism from many corners — including this Web site — over whether the broken air conditioning system was not quickly fixable in a state where air conditioning is as essential to the local lifestyle as the pickup truck.
“I saw the air conditioning people in the hallway on my way out of the arena last night, and I sent them all home,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich joked.
The Spurs sent a release Friday afternoon saying the electrical failure that caused the outage has been fixed and the air conditioning is fully operational and should be working for Game 2. Spoelstra wondered whether by the time Game 7 arrives the teams might be playing in an arena cooled to 55 degrees. But the nonchalance with which Spoelstra uttered the words “game” and “seven” suggested a level of confidence that was befitting of a two-time defending champion.
The Heat believe they will be fine, but there has to be a level of concern about James and his history of hydration problems. It has been a problem throughout LeBron’s career, and he had a mostly sleepless night after receiving intravenous liquids following Game 1. He was walking with a noticeable limp Friday afternoon.
“I’m conscious of the products I endorse,” James said when a reporter alluded to the Powerade controversy, “but when I’m playing that’s not at the forefront of my mind.
Powerade, a division of the Coca-Cola company, is a relative newcomer in the multi-billion dollar sports drink industry, the official beverage of this summer’s soccer World Cup. James has been an endorser since 2003.
The bottle of orange Powerade pictured above cost $1.99 at a local convenience store, and the ingredients listed on the label include water, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, salt, mono-potassium phosphate, magnesium chloride, calcium chloride, gum acacia, glycerel ester of rosin, ascorbic acid and calcium disodium EDTA. That 32 ounce bottle contains 15 percent of the body’s recommended daily allowance of sodium (salt) and 17.5 percent of the recommended daily allowance of carbohydrates.
I opened the bottle pictured above and drank several gulps after writing that previous paragraph, and the stuff tastes good and orangy going down but has a distinct salty aftertaste that lingers.
The bottle of orange Gatorade was smaller, 20 ounces, and retailed for $1.49. The main difference, ingredient-wise, is that the sweetness comes from sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup. It is higher in sodium and carbohydrates, and it has an ingredient called sucrose acetate isobutyrate along with everyone’s favorite, gycerel ester of rosin.
The taste test on that bottle, performed after typing the previous paragraph, yielded a distinctly sweeter tasting beverage without as strong of an aftertaste as Powerade. But the sweetness was someone sickening to this discerning beverage connoisseur, who learned long ago that the best thing to drink to stay hydrated is ice-cold water. It tastes good, and it doesn’t make you fat.
The Powerade Twitter account fell silent Thursday night after the following tweet was posted early during Game 1:
Consistency, unselfishness and a drive to succeed. Congrats @KingJames on 4,000+ points and 1,000+ assists in the post-season. #powerthrough
— POWERADE (@POWERADE) June 6, 2014
The social media folks at Gatorade wasted no time getting in a jab at their main competitor, but the company apologized Friday and deleted the tweets referencing James’ cramps. One of them, in response to someone who directed a message toward the sports drink’s feed, read: “We were waiting on the sidelines, but he prefers to drink something else.”
According to the Associated Press, James was drinking Gatorade at least once during Game 1 of the finals. Video and photos taken of James on the Heat bench during the second half showed him holding what appeared to be a Gatorade bottle with the label removed, as has been the case on many other occasions.
James said he expected to be 100 percent by Sunday night, and it seemed almost certain he would sit out practice Saturday and undergo further treatment for hydration. Spurs point guard Tony Parker said he was hoping that James would be fully ready for Game 2, because he wants to face “the real Heat.”
The “real Spurs” were able to overcome their 23 turnovers in Game 1 by shooting 14-for-16 overall and 6-for-6 from downtown in the fourth quarter. That level of accuracy is going to be almost impossible to beat, and the question for San Antonio is whether the Spurs can come close to duplicating it Sunday. Miami has a history of bouncing back from Game 1 losses, but they were listed as a 3 1/2 point underdog in Las Vegas when the line opened, and it quickly moved to 4 1/2.
Clearly, Miami will need to find a way to cope with San Antonio’s size advantage in order to even up the series before it moves to Miami. They will need a healthy James to do that, and no matter what his beverage of choice turns out to be over the next two days, it is critical that whatever he drinks produces the desired effect.
Because without him, Miami simply cannot compete with San Antonio.
Chris Sheridan is publisher and editor-in-chief of SheridanHoops.com. Follow him on Twitter.
FINALLY, a coherent explanation for you being the 2014 onion-headed version of a babbling Gary Washburn leaving LeBron James off his ballot.
You weren’t hydrated.