What a YouTube Basketball Star Taught Me About Hooping, Content, and Building a Brand

A few years ago, I lost a pickup game to a guy who looked like he'd never touched a ball. He had a jersey two sizes too big and no warm-up. I had the expensive shoes and the confidence. He hit three straight shots over me, laughed, and said, "You're thinking too hard."

That night I went home and fell into a YouTube rabbit hole. Every other video I clicked had the same guy in it: Jesser. He was running 1v1s, hitting trick shots, and goofing around with pro players, and he looked like he was having more fun than anyone else on the internet.

I've been watching his stuff for a while now, and I want to share what I've picked up. It's not just about basketball. It's about how someone turned a hobby into a full lifestyle brand, and what regular people can take from that.

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Who Jesser Actually Is

Jesser's real name is Jesse Riedel. He got noticed with an "NBA 2K14 In Real Life" video made while he was still in high school, and he later rebranded from JesserTheLazer to just Jesser to focus on basketball content.

That detail matters more than it looks. He didn't start as a polished sports media company. He started with a video game idea and a camera.

His videos usually revolve around challenges or meeting professional athletes, and his brother James also makes YouTube videos under the name Jiedel. So there's a family-and-friends feel to a lot of it, which is a big part of why it doesn't feel like a corporate sports show.

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The Thing Most People Miss: It's About Fun First

When I first watched his videos, I assumed the appeal was the NBA names. Big player, big thumbnail, big views. That's part of it.

But the longer I watched, the more I noticed that the best videos aren't about the celebrity. They're about the situation. Can a regular guy beat a pro at a silly game? What happens when the rules get weird?

That's the real-life NBA challenge format. It works because everyone watching has played basketball somewhere: a driveway, a school gym, a park. You instantly understand the stakes.

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From YouTube Channel to Actual Brand

This is the part that interests me most as someone who's tried (and failed) to build things online.

He founded BucketSquad in 2017 as a lifestyle brand and community built around basketball culture and digital content creation, launched to give his growing audience apparel and merch tied to his passion for the game.

Notice the order. The audience came first, then the product. A lot of people try it backwards: they design a logo, order 200 hoodies, and then wonder why nobody cares.

In 2021, he went further. According to SoleSavy's announcement, he released his first original sneaker design, the Bucketsquad 1, built around basketball, gaming, and the brand itself, with black basketball-inspired leather and white mesh to match the popular Bucketsquad shorts.

That's a creator who understood that merch has to look like something people actually want to wear, not just a name slapped on a shirt.

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The Big Moments & Impact

If you want proof that creator culture and the NBA world have merged, look at his résumé:

• He was set to compete in the NBA's 2023 All-Star Celebrity Game in Salt Lake City, and signed with the talent management company Night around the same time.
• In 2024, he appeared on NBA League Pass, commentating an alternative broadcast.
• He also had a role presenting the fan vote at the 2025 NBA Dunk Contest, which Sporting News covered.

Tubefilter reported that in October 2022 his main channel hit 249 million monthly views, ahead of the NFL's main channel at 200 million and the NBA's at 189 million. A guy who started with a video game video was out-viewing the leagues themselves for a month. Wild.

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What I Actually Took From It (And Tried Myself)

Watching is easy. Applying it is harder. Here's what worked for me, in the order I tried it:

1. Make the game the point, not the performance: After that pickup loss, I stopped trying to look good and started playing loose. My shooting percentage went up within two weeks. Turns out "you're thinking too hard" was real advice.
2. Copy the format, not the tricks: I tried to learn trick shots first. Bad idea. I wasted a month on shots I couldn't hit in a real game. What I should have borrowed was the challenge structure: set a simple rule, add a small stake, and play it out. My friends and I started doing "first to five from random spots" games, and they were way more fun than regular scrimmages.
3. If you're filming, film the reaction, not the shot: When I tried filming our games on my phone, the footage was boring. The shots were fine, but nobody cared. The funny parts were the arguments, the missed attempts, and the celebrations. Once I started recording the people instead of the ball, the clips became watchable.
4. Build the audience before the product: If you ever want to start a small brand around anything, take the BucketSquad lesson seriously. Make something people already care about, then offer something that fits. Merch is a thank-you to people who are already there, not a way to find them.

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Mistakes I Made (So You Don't Have To)

• Copying someone's style too closely: My first few clips were basically bad Jesser imitations. They felt hollow because I was copying the energy without the context. Borrow ideas, not personalities.
• Chasing big names: I thought a video without a famous person wouldn't work. It turns out a good local challenge, like "can my 50-year-old uncle beat me from the free-throw line," beats a boring celebrity cameo.
• Ignoring safety: A few "challenge" ideas I brainstormed involved jumping off things or contact I wasn't ready for. Don't. Stay within your skill level, warm up, and skip anything that could end with an injury. Pro creators have teams and experience; you have a driveway.
• Posting inconsistently: I'd post three videos in a week, then vanish for a month. The channels that grow are the ones that show up regularly, even when the video isn't perfect.
• Overspending on gear early: I bought a microphone before I had anything worth recording. Wait until the content is good and the gear is the bottleneck.

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Why This Resonates Beyond Basketball

Jesser's whole rise is a pretty good case study in what the internet rewards right now: a clear identity, a community that feels included, and the willingness to turn a hobby into something bigger without losing the fun.

Reed Duchscher, the founder and CEO of Night, said Jesser bridged the gap between traditional sports and Gen Z internet culture faster than any creator he'd seen. Whether or not you buy that, it's clear that a lot of younger fans first got into basketball through creator content, not a TV broadcast.

I'm one of those people, honestly. I came for the funny challenges and ended up playing three nights a week.

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Final Thoughts

I still lose pickup games sometimes. The guy in the oversized jersey beats me about half the time. But I'm having more fun, and I've finally stopped treating every possession like a job interview.

If you take one thing from Jesser's story, make it this: start with something you genuinely love, share it as honestly as you can, and let the rest build slowly. The sneakers, the stadium appearances, and the millions of views came after a kid with a camera and a video game idea decided to make something he thought was fun.

Grab a ball, call a friend, and invent a dumb challenge this weekend. That's how most of this starts.