PORTLAND, Ore. — Any Trail Blazers fan in the know can sing the jingle to last season's Stumptown Coffee commercial featuring Portland guard Shabazz Napier.
♪♪ Shabazz is the man! Shabazz is the man! Shabazz is the man! ♪♪
It was such a popular commercial, the chorus of the jingle became a part of Blazers games, with the hook blaring over the loud speakers any time Napier did something good on the court.
Alas, Napier moved on during the offseason and took his talents to Brooklyn, where he's playing backup guard for the Nets. No word on whether he's been given a catchy commercial in New York.
Stumptown Coffee is still here, though, and their choice for a new Blazers player to pitch their brand is the Bosnian Beast himself, Jusuf Nurkic.
Stumptown's new commercial features Nurkic, not as the man, necessarily, but instead, in a van.
The Blazers' burly center rides through the streets of Portland in a yellow van, tossing bags of Stumptown coffee out the window. At one point, he drives through a puddle and soaks "Dry Ice," one of the characters from last season's Shabazz commercial, jams out in a wig to a band playing in the back of his rig, and downs a cup of Stumptown coffee like he's drinking from a shot glass.
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Jared Cowley writes about the Trail Blazers and other topics for KGW.com. He's also the co-host of the 3-on-3 Blazers podcast (listen here). You can reach him on Twitter @jaredcowley.