Muggsy playing for IBM

Someone wondered why Muggsy Bogues didn't make my list of best-named basketball players. The answer: Muggsy was waived by the Mavs on opening day and hasn't played this season, so he didn't qualify for the list. Nothing against him, though; he's still the best professional basketball player under 5'5".

Anyway, you might've seen Muggsy and other former NBA players in IBM's recent e-business ads. A NY Times article (free registration required) goes into some detail on the campaign. The highlights:

The commercials feature former professional basketball stars like Muggsy Bogues, Bill Laimbeer and Moses Malone as members of a team named Infrastructure, standing for the integration and cooperation I.B.M. considers necessary for e- commerce to function. The Infrastructure team is matched in games against a sharp-elbowed bunch of cheaters competing under the name Crash.

The good guys — in blue uniforms, natch, which is the traditional I.B.M. color — are players called Mainframe, PC, Firewall, Linux and Middleware. The opponents are called Downtime, Hacker, Spam (the e-mail variety, of course, not the Hormel spiced ham), Spike and Virus.

Three thoughts on this:

1. What's that? Former bad-boy Bill Laimbeer is playing for the good guys? (If you don't remember Bill Laimbeer from his days with the Detroit Pistons, his playing style was nicely summarized in the Beastie Boys' song Tough Guy.)
   
   
2. Does the Times really have to explain the difference between email spam and Hormel spiced ham?
   
   
3. Most interesting of all (and not in the above excerpt), IBM's blue letterbox campaign has been running for four years and includes some 75 to 100 television spots.