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The end of the NBA's regular season brings with it not only the start of the playoffs, but also voting for the league's slew of annual awards — Most Valuable Player, Rookie of the Year, etc. — and the three All-NBA teams that recognize the top forwards, guards and centers from the just-concluded campaign. Each year, teams' public-relations departments and promotional arms take it upon themselves to come up with fun, quirky ways to raise their players' profiles with prospective voters — think of the "Bruise Brothers" LP that the Minnesota Timberwolves sent coaches to try to get Nikola Pekovic added to the Western Conference All-Star team, or the then-New Jersey Nets' "Incredible Hump" promo to push Kris Humphries for Most Improved Player. This season appears to be no exception, with the Houston Rockets shipping out Superman-inspired press packages and beard-grooming kits to push the MVP candidacies of Dwight Howard and James Harden, respectively. (They're pretty clearly fighting for third place , just like everybody else not named LeBron James or Kevin Durant, but it's still fun to make things.) The early leader in creativity and execution among this year's crop of award promotions, though, is "Big Al's Paint," a multimedia campaign launched by the Charlotte Bobcats to advance the notion that Al Jefferson should be included as the center on one of the three All-NBA teams. The idea's brilliant in its simplicity: nobody owns the painted area (shouts to Hubie) quite like the 29-year-old behemoth, so let's pitch him as the owner and operator of North Carolina's premier painting companies. Charlotte kicked it off by sending voters a Big Al-branded paint can jammed with tonally appropriate goodies:
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