When you ask anyone to pick their favorite cover of SLAM, it’s the 15th issue featuring a fold-out cover of rising rookies from the 1996 NBA Draft “set to blow up” that quickly comes to mind for many. One of the deepest classes ever posed in front of a brick wall, and SLAM was right there to stamp the collection of future Hall of Famers as next up. 

Standing amongst the seasoned collegians was an 18 year-old straight out of high school, confidently holding the official Spalding game ball on the cover shot. It would be the first of 19 SLAM covers that Kobe Bryant would grace. 

As SLAM celebrates its 30th anniversary throughout 2024, we’ve teamed up with brands around the industry to celebrate the most iconic covers, athletes and sneakers from throughout the magazine’s three decades through a series of new collaboration designs. 

It was in those early days that Kobe Bryant and Adidas created some game changing sneakers in the late 90s heading towards the turn of the millennium. His signature series went to another level in 2000, when Adidas took design inspiration from Audi coupes and brought a new look to the game entirely. 

As we highlight that Issue #15 cover and Bryant’s start with Adidas, we’re also looking back on Kobe’s final signature model with The Three Stripes. 

SLAM is bringing to life one of Adidas’ most forward-thinking and polarizing designs in company history — the Crazy Two — which is getting the full retro treatment for the very first time. 

“Really, it was all about just doing a new look,” original designer Eirik Nielsen had told me a few years back. 

With the brand looking ahead to the 2000s, design legend and Adidas executive Peter Moore put together a team that aimed to define the futuristic design language that was expected for the new millennium. Bryant would be the vehicle to push Adidas forward into new territory. 

Of the fourteen voters from SLAM’s staff that each named their rookies “Most likely to…” in fifteen different topics, Kobe Bryant was only mentioned three times in that 15th issue of the magazine. Once as an ambitious Rookie of the Year pick — twice as most likely to “piss off Jordan.” 

By 2000 though, he had become a global icon. 

Bryant was on the cusp of helping lead the Lakers to a three-peat, and he was the face of Adidas Basketball around the world. To try and level up, the brand teamed up with Audi designers at the car company’s creative studio in Malibu to concept his next signature sneakers. 

Drafting off of the Audi TT roadster for inspiration, it was an entirely different way of designing a shoe. Shoes were first modeled in clay and sculpted, like a car. The results were proportions and sharp lines that gave the silhouette a stance unlike anything before it. 

“They were very, very different,” joked Nielsen.

Inspired by the vivid shades of teal and yellow on Kobe’s first-ever cover, this new SLAM edition of the Crazy Two comes in two separate base color pairs, all wrapped in suede. 

SLAM’s signature Three Stars are embroidered along the tongue of each shoe — with brick graphic insoles highlighted by SLAM’s 30th Anniversary crest on the heel, tying back to the cover backdrop. 

The sneaker was every bit as boundary pushing as it was polarizing when it originally launched in 2001, and still looks just as futuristic and unique today as it did more than twenty years ago. Adidas is expected to also re-release some of the original colorways as we get into 2025.

As SLAM closes the chapter on its 30th Anniversary series of sneaker collabs to cap off 2024, we’ve looked to celebrate the eras, players and covers that helped to shape the magazine into the Hall Of Fame-awarded definition of basketball culture all these years later. This friends and family retro edition of the Adidas Crazy Two honors one of the most impactful players in SLAM history and one of the most storied magazine covers, all through the lens of an equally forward-thinking and defining sneaker.

The post SLAM’s Adidas Collab Welcomes The Return Of The Crazy Two For The First Time  appeared first on SLAM.

Ever since he was a teenager, LaMelo Ball has been SLAM Fam. 

He was doing full-scale SLAM photoshoots with his brothers throughout his high school run at Chino Hills in California. First covered at just 13-years-old, his starpower and basketball journey have taken him around the globe ever since, even before entering the NBA in 2020. 

“I felt like I could play in the League when I was 14, 15,” Ball told SLAM years back. “I probably couldn’t have, but that’s just how I thought.”

After his Rookie of the Year start in the League, the face of Puma Hoops saw the launch of his first signature shoe coincide with his first All-Star Game appearance the following season in early 2022.

It was on Issue #237 that he pulled up for his SLAM cover shoot in his unlaced infrared MB.01s, hitting the league’s longtime logo pose in a custom LaFrance jersey from his own clothing line.

“It’s a little bit of a reach to say he’s already achieved ‘NBA Logo’ face-of-the-League status, but he’s on his way there, and we’re not afraid of a bold call,” SLAM Ed. Adam Figman wrote at the time. “Consider this our prediction that one day we’ll all look back and realize that this cover made perfect sense.”

As we continue to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of SLAM this year and look even just a few years back — it did make perfect sense. 

Highlighting the most iconic covers, players and sneakers over the last 30 years to tell the story of SLAM’s impact on the basketball world, we teamed up with PUMA for this special edition pair of LaMelo’s latest signature shoe, the MB.04. 

In a loud infrared and metallic silver upper inspired by that Issue #237 cover and his “Out Of This World” game, Melo’s 4th signature model features blue accents throughout, and custom SLAM logos along the heel and tongue label. 

It was in that cover shoot that Melo debuted his iced out UFO chain, with the graphic coming to life once again here on the insoles of each shoe, and on the bottom of the MB.04 model. 

The packaging itself is crazy, featuring a SLAM cover-inspired outer sleeve with a portrait from that 2022 photoshoot, along with custom logos along the metallic shoe box. These joints are as loud as it gets — pure Melo. As he’s shown over the years, being subtle is never his style.

“From the beginning, I always felt like no one was really fucking with me,” Ball said in the cover story. “I just always had that attitude.”

As SLAM continues to celebrate its 30th anniversary, the magazine has been there for every step of LaMelo Ball’s rise. Now, it’s only right that SLAM is officially teaming up with Melo to bring things full circle.

This limited edition SLAM x PUMA MB.04 will be dropping in exclusive quantities on both SLAMgoods.com and puma.com this Friday, December 27 at 10 AM EST.

SECURE YOUR PAIR OF SLAM x PUMA MB.04 HERE

The post SLAM’s PUMA MB.04 Collab Celebrates LaMelo Ball’s “Out Of This World” Game appeared first on SLAM.

Penny Hardaway has never forgotten the first time he saw the Foamposite. 

Nike designer Eric Avar was meeting with him to talk sneakers and show him some upcoming samples, as usual, when a sneaker tucked inside of a Nike duffel bag caught his attention. 

“I was just like, ‘Oh my god! What is that?’” Hardaway told me years ago. 

On the spot, it became his next signature shoe. The molded neon royal shoe was groundbreaking then and ever since, and became an instant classic, stamped by Penny in 1997. 

Even all these years later, the Foamposite One, with its subtle Swoosh along the toe and One Cent logo hits along the heel and tongue, has been one of the most beloved sneakers of all time.

“It was just a crazy shoe,” he added. “And I had never seen anything like it in my life.”

As SLAM celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, we’re looking back on some of the most iconic issue covers and most impactful players throughout the Hall of Fame-inducted magazine’s history. We created some fire collabs for the occasion. 

The 30th issue of SLAM in late 1998 featured Penny Hardaway, just as he was looking to make his return from a series of repeating knee injuries in Orlando. The feature was graced with a Scoop Jackson-penned cover story that perfectly captured his immediate rise with the Orlando Magic and his mission to stay on top of the game that he poured everything into. 

The cover story featured lyric laden bridge paragraphs between the candid Q&A — yet another Scoop masterpiece that broke the mold for formatting. 

“Leave you black & blue like a pair of Penny’s / or Foamposites” 

Even before that first sample made its way to the meeting with Penny, we must first go back to the fall of 1995, when Avar was sketching away in Beaverton, Oregon. It is completely insane to consider the time and era in which the Foamposite was first conceived, as the shoe not only had a viral-before-there-was-social-media $180 price point, but required an all-new manufacturing process entirely. 

The shoe was decades ahead of its time — and still is.

While the “Galaxy” Foams in 2012 instantly shut it down and created an entire era of graphic-printed sneakers, it was years ago in ’95 that Avar actually first imagined a printing process atop the shoe’s Foamposite material. One of his earliest sketches incorporated shaded hues of blue along the upper.

This SLAM collab, for the first time ever, brings that sketch to life.

The Eric Avar sketch, from the fall of 1995.

The SLAM edition’s molded Foamposite upper features a printed graphic inspired by Avar’s concept sketch, with the details dialed in from there. For the first time, there’s a Swoosh along the shank, just as Avar had originally sketched it. 

The tongue and heel logos alternate between Hardaway’s sleek 1 Cent logo and the SLAM logo, inspired by Penny’s longtime insistence to keep his logo in place on collaborative designs. To this day, it’s one of the greatest signature logos ever created, that he instantly approved of when he first saw it.

“Right away I knew that they had done an amazing job with this logo,” he told me. 

“Back to back 40s. Miami Heat. Unforgettable.”

Along the insoles, the graphics from the Scoop Jackson cover story are recreated throughout, along with SLAM’s 30th Anniversary logo crest. The packaging integrates the original Avar sketch, and lyrics from Jackson’s prolific penmanship.

Three vertical stars found on every cover throughout the magazine’s 30 years are woven into the heel tab, while a number 30 honors Penny’s cover and SLAM’s 30th Issue. 

As the magazine turns 30, and the legend of the Foamposite lives on, this Friends & Family limited edition of Penny Hardaway’s most memorable sneaker brings the original design concept full circle.

The post SLAM’s Foamposite One Collab Celebrates Penny Hardaway’s Iconic Original Design appeared first on SLAM.

Paige Bueckers and Nike announced on Monday that the UConn star is the first-ever NIL athlete to design and drop a Nike Player Edition basketball sneaker, the Nike G.T. Hustle 3. She’s ready to get to work in them, too.

“It’s definitely motivating to wear your own shoe,” Paige says in an official press release. “I grew up wearing Nikes —all the signature shoes —so it’s surreal to have this Player Edition model. I just want to show out in it.”

Here’s everything you need to know about the kicks, from the inspiration behind the design to when they’re dropping and more.

Wait, Paige Buckets is getting her own sneaker!

Her own Nike Player Editions, that is. The Nike G.T. Hustle 3 is meant to “propel her performance during the final season of her illustrious collegiate career,” at UConn.

What do they look like?

The silhouette was made with her style, and elite game, in mind. The beauty is in the details: from the baby blue and lavender purple colorway—her favorite colors—to the area codes for the University of Connecticut and Paige’s hometown in Minnesota that are on the left tongue, as well as an embroidered bucket on the right (iykyk).

There’s also a text bubble with the very message Bueckers gets from her dad before every game: “Be You, Be Great.”

When do they drop?

Mark your calendar: the Nike G.T. Hustle 3 will be available December 7 on SNKRS and at select retail locations.

The post Paige Bueckers is Getting Her Own PE: Everything You Need to Know About the Nike G.T. Hustle 3s appeared first on SLAM.

You already know this was a must. 

As Allen Iverson writes in the foreword of the “30 YEARS OF SLAM” book:

“I AM SLAM.” 

“I say I AM SLAM because together — with me living it and SLAM covering it — we made it OK to be you, to be authentic, in the NBA,” Iverson writes. “Shit, we made it OK for athletes to be themselves in all of sports. Now that might sound cocky, but it’s not. It’s just facts.”

The bond and timeline of the two have been linked ever since Iverson was first featured on the mag’s ninth cover in early 1996, while still in college. When Issue #32 dropped though, the impact reached beyond basketball. 

It’s not just an iconic SLAM cover. It’s an image that kickstarted an entire throwback jersey era for the 2000s, and cemented AI as the most culturally impactful icon that the league has ever seen. 

“In SLAM in the beginning, we would just cover the culture,” founder Dennis Page recently told Iverson. “But after ‘Soul On Ice,’ I like to think that we became part of the culture, because of that cover. Allen gave us the credibility.”

Throughout the detailed Russ Bengtson feature interview with The Answer, there’s a layout graphic featuring Iverson that’s centered around “The 3 of Diamonds.” As we all know, there isn’t much explanation needed to explain Allen’s affinity for ice. 

The throwback “PHILA” jersey he’s wearing in early 1999 was custom made by a local nearby manufacturer named Mitchell & Ness, to highlight the history of the league in an “Old School Issue” as the NBA was dealing with a lockout that year. It was the chain, the tats, the bracelet, the watch and the earrings that let you know this was a modern icon of the next millennium. 

“I fell in love with that magazine,” Iverson told Page. “Just the loyalty, and the way y’all had no problem with letting me be me. It was no situation to where I had to deal with being on the cover and my tattoos are airbrushed off. All authentic. It was, ‘You be you, and we’ll take care of the rest.’”

To celebrate the original cover and the magazine’s 30th anniversary this year, SLAM and Reebok teamed up on a limited edition pair of Iverson’s iconic first signature shoe. 

Throughout Iverson’s career, diamonds were often incorporated into anniversary moments or celebratory launches, like the time Reebok put a $65,000 diamond-laced Question up for sale on Eastbay. When Iverson celebrated his 10th anniversary with the company, Reebok gifted him with a diamond-laced pair of Answers from his MVP season. 

Inspired by “frosted” diamond watches, the midsole of the SLAM x Reebok Question Low features a metallic frosted texture that extends up into the shoe’s unmistakable toe cap. 

The SLAM and Reebok logos alternate on the tongue and heel, while the lettering up the eyelets have been switched out to read Allen’s longtime nickname among his closest friends: “Bubba Chuck.” 

“SLAM was everything to my career,” added Iverson. “Still today, I walk past a magazine stand and I see that magazine — I’m grabbing it.”

Along the insoles and the box, Iverson is featured in alternate portraits from the era where he left a mark on the game for good.  

The “3 of Diamonds” logo from the original cover story layout can be found on both the heel of the shoe and through the clear outsole, bringing one of the most impactful covers in SLAM’s 30-year history full circle, celebrating once again that “Allen Iverson is Soul On Ice.” 

“It was an honor for all of us to be able to embrace the cover, be in it and have our story told, the way that we wanted it to be told,” Iverson reflected. “It was so great for the culture, and so great for basketball. And it’s going to live on forever.”

The post SLAM’s Reebok Question Collab Celebrates Allen Iverson’s Iconic “Soul On Ice” Cover appeared first on SLAM.

A year after being selected #1 overall in the 2020 WNBA draft, SLAM stamped New York Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu as “The Next Queen of NY” for the mag’s Future Issue.

Two years after SLAM #231, Sabrina was launching her very own signature shoe with Nike — just the 12th player in W league history to have her own namesake sneaker — a distinction both historical to reflect on, and aspirational to look ahead towards.

“I know the numbers — only 11 players in 27 years have come before me,” she beamed after the launch. “It’s one of the highest honors in our game and something beyond humbling to be a part of.”

The moment immediately took Ionescu’s starpower and impact on the game to yet another level. 

An All-Star and All-WNBA PG in each of the last three seasons since, the 3-Point Contest record setter is once again running point for a loaded Liberty squad that reached the WNBA Finals a year ago, and aspires to yet again this year. 

Her debut signature model broke barriers and saw adoption at all levels of the game, inspiring “anyone, anywhere,” just as she had hoped. 

“It’s crazy to think about now, but the vision that Nike and I had together has really come to life,” she added.

The momentum around her second sneaker made it one of the most anticipated models of the entire year. It’s led to players of all positions, at all levels and from all backgrounds feeling inspired whenever they’re lacing up their pairs of Sabrinas. 

“That’s been something that we’ve been able to see happen, from NBA players to college players and now young boys,” said Ionescu. “They’ll be able to put these shoes on and feel like they can go out and accomplish anything.”

With the expectations rightfully high as Sabrina entered her fifth season this summer, there were also equally high expectations for her follow-up signature shoe, the Nike Sabrina 2.

Returning a sleek silhouette and versatile colorblocking options along the upper, her second shoe has offered up both a lighter weight sneaker and a more responsive cushioning platform. The recognizable Swoosh placement on the inside of the first shoe returns yet again, angled upwards through a shattered glass graphic to signify Sabrina’s barrier breaking series.

To highlight her impact in the sneaker game and on the signature shoe business, SLAM teamed up with Nike to create a Sabrina 2 that will be unmistakable on court — flooded out in all seafoam.

As SLAM celebrates its 30th anniversary and the magazine’s upcoming induction into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, we collaborated with a batch of brands to highlight the most memorable covers, most impactful players and defining sneakers that made their mark during the past three decades of SLAM. 

Amplifying the bright seafoam teal throughout, the SLAM x Sabrina 2 features a variety of additional details throughout. The heels of each shoe incorporate SLAM’s logo along with a nod to the 30th anniversary, while the insole also includes our celebratory 30th banner icon. 

The Swoosh logos are elevated throughout, standing out with a mirror finish that speaks to the young girls and boys that can take inspiration from the shoes and “see themselves” in Sabrina’s path.  

“My favorite detail is the Swoosh and being able to see your own reflection,” said Ionescu. “I want everyone to see themselves, what it is that they want to create and what it is that they want to dream — to be able to go out and do that in my shoe.”

As SLAM turns the literal page, with not only 30 years of impact and a Hall Of Fame designation cementing the legacy of “the basketball bible” into hoops lore for good, it’s the future of the game of the game that the magazine is also centered on celebrating and highlighting going forward.

A future that Sabrina Ionescu is helping to define. Both through her play, and the impact of her signature series with Nike. 

“I know what some people might think: ‘It’s just a shoe…’

“But really,” she continues. “I think signature shoes like this can help continue to push the game forward, for all.”

As SLAM celebrates 30 years in the game, our newest Sabrina 2 collaboration looks ahead to The Future, linking back up with one of the magazine’s iconic cover athletes that is sure to continue to pave the way for the next generation of the game. 

The post SLAM’s Nike Sabrina 2 Collab Celebrates The Future Of The Game appeared first on SLAM.

When SLAM #41 dropped in April of 2000, we had just witnessed perhaps the greatest Dunk Contest performance of all time. Vince Carter was famously a sneaker free agent in just his second season, and he laced up the white and red AND1 Tai Chi on the fly for that instant classic array of dunks. 

AND1 had been around for a few years as a rising apparel company by that point and their transcendent streetball Mixtapes were moving major, but now, their footwear was taking off too. 

The Tai Chi became the first shoe in company history to sell more than a million pairs.

“Not only was that maybe the best series of dunks I’ve ever seen — because it was just dunks that you’d never even seen before — but it was almost like the dunks that he had done were tailor made for the colorblocking of the shoe,” said the brand’s former head of footwear. 

The opening reverse 360 perfectly showcased the white and red sides of each shoe rotating through the air. The between-the-legs dunk — off of a bounce pass — immortalized the shoes in mid-air forever.

The iconic photo is so classic that the Raptors’ new unis feature the pose right on the front. Earlier today, Vince and the franchise unveiled a new outdoor basketball court featuring the silhouette at half court.

As the buzz back in 2000 after that mid-February All-Star Weekend continued, on the very next SLAM cover slot that was available, VC laced up a simple black and white pair of the Tai Chi for the cover shot.

The header text was straightforward:

“The Greatest Show On Earth” 

As SLAM continues to celebrate its 30th Anniversary this year, we created a new version of the AND1 Tai Chi to honor the 2000s era of AND1 and the impact of the Tai Chi on sneaker culture.

The timing couldn’t be better, as both SLAM Magazine and Vince Carter will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame next month in October. 

Our AND1 Tai Chi collab features SLAM’s heritage colors of white, grey, black and orange, fittingly the exact shades from that Issue 41 cover shot. 

The white-to-black mesh fade is a nod to the brand’s unique materializations from the start of the decade, and a way to bring the Tai Chi’s original yin and yang inspired split read to the side of the shoe.

As always, the shoe looks best with a suede color along the inside panel — a bright orange suede is seen here on the SLAM edition. 

The contrast stitching, split color laces and chrome shank all tie back to the added touches that initially made AND1 footwear such a force in hoops during the turn of the millennium.

To layer in more detailing, our 30th anniversary crest can be seen along the inner right collar, opposite of the three vertical stars on the left collar that signify each issue’s edition number.

The 3M hits throughout tie back to the bright lights of All-Star Weekend, and the impact that The Greatest Show On Earth has had, all these years later, on both AND1 and SLAM Magazine. 

The post The Greatest Show On Earth // This AND1 Tai Chi Collab Celebrates SLAM’s 30th Anniversary  appeared first on SLAM.

This story and so much more sneaker coverage is included in latest issue of SLAM KICKS 27. Grab your copy now.

First Team

DeMar DeRozan

No one else has the range that DeMar possesses when it comes to Kobes. This has been firmly established, especially on our page. And if we’re being real, DeMar’s collection on its own is enough to make this list year after year. The 1s, 6s and 9s all made their expected appearances, but it was seeing the Kobe 10 Elite HTM and the return of the Kobe A.D. from his Spurs days that cemented his status, yet again.

P.J. Tucker

In a reality where the grails of 10 years ago are being re-released every few months, P.J. Tucker remains pulling up to arenas with unspeakable colorways in tow. Nike KD 4 samples and Off-White Kobe customs should paint the range that the man displayed night after night. 

Devin Booker

A storyteller, a tastemaker and a sneaker historian. Devin Booker proved to be all those and more with the debut of his first signature sneaker. Colorways honored the Beaverton brand’s past icons and Booker’s own memories. Appearances were mapped out with a thematic-level of care. Documented and televised, the Nike Book 1 not only laid the foundation for Booker’s line, it set the standard mad high. 

Stephen Curry

When you’ve spent 11 years with one brand like Stephen Curry has, you get to dip back into the archives as much as you want to. Especially when all of your models have been updated so you’re floating on Flow cushioning. From headlining the Curry 11 to the Anatomix Spawn FloTro and the Curry 4 FloTro, the 2023-24 season saw the best shooter on the planet merge the stories of today with the silhouettes of years past.

Tyrese Maxey

The tides of opportunity turned to Tyrese Maxey all season long as the 76ers point guard of the future. But it was his diverse rotation of New Balance TWO WXY v4 colorways that cemented Mad Max’s first-ever First Team selection. From dollar bills with his face to revealing his own logo, the Boston brand isn’t pulling any punches with the rising star.

SECOND TEAM

LeBron James

The LeBron 21 got funky when it came to colorways. Shaggy suedes, pearlescent oranges, glossy metallics; even a second layer to the silhouette was revealed in clad grey. The extent of the experimentation culminated in the return of Deion Sanders’ Nike Air DT Max ’96, revealing a hybrid sneaker slashed by the football trainer’s iconic claw marks. The sandbox remains full of opportunity.

Paul George

When one door closes, another opens. In Paul George’s case, at least a dozen did. A stream of Kobe 4s, 8s, PG 1s and 2s all flowed through in his second season removed from his signature deal with Nike. And if you thought we saw the “Philly” Kobe 4 a lot last year, just wait until 2024-25 season.

Malik Monk

When you have an arsenal of Kobes like Malik Monk, balance might be the last thing on your mind. But the Kings guard has proven to be tasteful in his on-court output, shifting between his own PEs, original colorways and the recently updated run of Protros without leaning too far one way or the other. 

Jayson Tatum

From “Taco Jay” and flavored lemonades to wavy denim treatments, Jayson Tatum already has a thoroughly thought-out roster of colorways. The Jordan Tatum 2 extended the efforts of his first signature and established a lengthy connection to the brand’s wider athletes, from the WNBA to the League’s rising stars.

Trey Lyles

Let’s be real, no other big man in the L is putting it on like Trey Lyles. The Kobe aficionado has been well recorded on our socials and his collection of 4s through 9s remained in peak form this season. Toss in a duo of Yeezy and Mambacurial-inspired customs and you’ve got a second-straight Second Team selection for the Sacramento forward. 

MVP: P.J. Tucker

We’ve been over it before and we’ll say it again, P.J. Tucker is not the sneaker king, but he is the MVP of the 2023-24 SLAM KICKS Awards. Kicking it in the Nike Kobe 3 and Mookie Betts’ Air Jordan 11 PEs puts him in a tier of his own. But it’s the stories behind the likes of his own Nike Air Flight ’89 and exclusive Nike Book 1 colorways that remain at the heart of P.J.’s continued sneaker excellence. 

Most Improved Player: Devin Booker

After years featuring an assortment of sleek, Suns-appropriate Kobe PEs, Devin Booker was handed the keys to his own signature series. He’s not just the face of the silhouette, he spearheaded every part of the process, from its shape and color blocking to the eventual releases. An exclusive rotation of orange, black, purples and greys shifted to reach every corner of the color palette as tasteful colorways arrived in droves from October to April.

Rookie of the Year: Victor Wembanyama

The Nike Air Zoom GT Run was Wemby’s running mate all season long. Block after block, one jaw-dropping display of indescribable basketball artistry after another, the alien moniker has become more than fitting. Self-drawn extraterrestrial doodles served as his stamp of expression until the arrival of his own GT Hustle colorway at NBA All-Star Weekend. Sporting a sea of galactic imagery, the Swoosh doubled down with the reveal of Wemby’s own logo chiseled into a corn field. If anything, this is just the beginning of Wemby’s ascension in the sneaker space.  

Photos via Getty Images.

The post Undeniable Heat: Presenting The 2023-24 SLAM KICKS Awards appeared first on SLAM.

Ja Morant’s first signature sneaker set the standard high. Clean colorways and a smooth, comfy ride stamped the low-top sneaker’s wide-spread adoption from the high school circuit to college and NBA arenas. The debut was built on a clear cut foundation that screamed success since its debut, and for the sequel, Jarrett Mann, Head of Design for Nike Men’s Global Basketball Footwear, and Ja found even more areas to explore.

“The Ja 2 is building on a lot of the fundamentals of the Ja 1 and his style of play,” Mann says. “We know that Ja is a high flyer, and we also know that he changes direction and requires control. So really, the icons of this shoe were about bounce and control.” 

Ja solidified the check list for his signature series throughout the process of the 1. Comfort, stability, homages to his family along with a number of other items show up in the Ja 2 through an evolved lens.

To support the bunnies of the highest flyer in the L, the Ja 2 doubles down on its forefoot Air Zoom unit with the inclusion of a full-length Cushlon cushioning system. Other enhancements for comfort include a more pronounced ankle collar system, a sleek waterfall-inspired inner lining and a ballistic mesh vamp. But the hallmark of the sneaker resides in the ribbed midfoot panel. The molded aesthetic is more than just for show, bringing functional support as the model’s mainstay lockdown system for the 25-year-old who routinely evades the laws of gravity. Pair that with the raised sidewall guardrail and a stitched medial panel, and the checklist’s nearly complete. 

“Definitely the comfort level is obviously the first thing I recognize when putting on the shoe. That’s the first thing that everybody looks for,” Ja says. “Once I stepped in those shoes, I felt real comfortable in them. After that it was lacing ’em up and getting right. Making sure I can do everything I normally do on the court when you see me play, and I was able to do that at a very good level. And that was the whole goal with the Ja 2, to make sure I’m the best Ja out there on the floor.”

Improvements have been made, but “the core things always stay the same,” Ja says. “My checklist, that’s locked in stone. We know that every time we step in the room to speak on the Ja [line]. So it’s really just what other stories am I comfortable expressing through my shoes?”

The Nike Ja 1 served as the testament to his rise. Those images of sun-stained cones, flipping tires–which inspired the 2s traction pattern–and 12 a.m. workouts, now embroidered at the heel, are still present. The Nike Ja 2 amplifies those experiences and searches for even more by delving into the strength of the palette and his stash of stories.

On top of the personal memories exists a collection of shades and tones that aim to evoke the same feelings we all experience when watching No. 12. The “Purple Sky colorway paints that on-court energy in a galactic collection of plums, mismatched neon Swooshes and paint-splattered midsoles echoing the sights of the night sky.

The vibrant red, gold and black “Nightmare” composition captures the nightly reality for Ja’s opponents: an unstoppable display of speed, hops and will that you can’t shake loose. Light greys, ice blues and hits of metallic gold envision his trips to the top in the “Tree Topper” colorway. But of all the upcoming releases, the one Ja’s most excited for represents those closest to him. 

“‘In the Woods’ is probably one of my favorites and pretty much the biggest one for anybody who knows me or my family and how we get along,” Ja says. “We call where I’m from back home ‘The Woods.’ And it’s pretty much sitting around a cook-out and we’re all there together just bonding, listening to music, you play cards. It’s a lot of fun.”

When asked how the chosen colors correlated with those memories from South Carolina, Ja points to the light brown highlights, royal blue Swooshes and evergreen collar lining. “You’re gonna see dirt,” Ja laughs. “And then my grandma’s porch and the house color. It’s all in there.”

And as Mann explains, using different textures and finishes only magnifies the end result. 

“Texture is extremely important, and it’s all the team who obsesses over the work. Something as simple as ‘In The Woods,’ you’ve got a textile that feels a bit more rugged and tactile,” Mann says, as he floats the heel of the Ja 2 colorway in front of the camera.

“And if you look at the “Purple Sky” colorway, you get this sheen and shine with star graphics. So really, this shoe as you see it, you’re going to see a ton of colorways, a ton of expression all brought to life with those materials. [There’s] a lot more to come, but definitely, we’re looking at how do we interpret the things that we hear from Ja and put those into the shoe.”

Turns out, Ja and the Swoosh struck another gold mine. 

Photos via Nike and SLAM KICKS.

The post The Second Generation: Behind the Design of the Nike Ja 2 appeared first on SLAM.

It was everything we could have dreamed of. One by one, the 2024 NBA All-Stars from the East and West made their way from the tunnel to the court. It was February 18, 2024. Everybody was suited in their best. The King debuted a hybrid Nike LeBron 21 fused with Deion Sanders’ monochrome Nike Air DT Max. Stephen Curry was rocking his titular Curry 4 Low FloTro. The digs were clean. And then a metallic finish gleamed under the lights of Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

Draped in the game’s half-red, half-blue striped warm-ups, Kevin Durant sent everyone—including us—into a fever pitch. The litany of social media posts that followed echoed the culture-shaking moments from the heyday of NikeTalk. Bright orange Swooshes stamped at the strap and the medial heel. A faint baby blue speckling littering the jet-black midsole that reflected the depths of deep space. A translucent, glow-in-the-dark outsole sitting just below. And under the hood, a picturesque galaxy of stars, big bangs and wormholes extending across the insoles.

For the first time since 2012, Kevin Durant was wearing the KD 4. And this wasn’t like him kicking it in a pair of Travis Scott x Air Jordan 1 OG Lows from his beloved rotation. The two-time NBA champ was dropping buckets in the Zoom-cushioned silhouette just like he did 12 years prior.

For the entirety of the first half, we got to watch KD play in what’s continuously heralded as the best sneaker in his lengthy signature discography. We literally witnessed history repeat itself in real time. Top of the key threes, alley-oop reverse lays and no-look assists on the perimeter. Different jersey, different city and a few more grays in the beard, but the kicks stayed the exact same.

We’re serious, the exact same. Kevin Durant’s retro run is precisely that: a retro. This isn’t the same ethos that surrounds Kobe Bryant’s Protro pairs that have been retooled for the modern game. The 4s have the same smooth TPU strap, full-length Zoom Air bag and monomesh midfoot windows that Leo Chang masterfully cobbled together out in Beaverton.

On a hallowed night in Orlando over a decade ago, the world watched a 23-year-old Durant stamp his unyielding love for the game in his third-ever All-Star appearance. Thirty-six points, 7 boards, 3 dots and 3 steals = MVP. Fast forward 12 years, and the sneaker wasn’t just laced on KD’s feet as he poured in a surgically efficient 18 points; it also lay in a shielded display case at CORPORATE on McCrea St.

Everyone knows about the different hallmark moments in the NBA season. But for the sneaker brands, All-Star Weekend is the epicenter of the year. Budgets are allocated, plans are set in place and venues are booked months and months in advance. In-person activations are the name of the game, marrying newly released products with experiential moments. Customizable gear is like its own currency. Then there are the true sneakerheads, who are are searching through pop-up stores and local boutiques for the holy grail of the weekend.

This past February out in Indianapolis, everyone was hunting for the pair Durant would famously wear a few days later.

The tonal beige and brown “Year of the Dragon 2.0” colorway may have officially kicked off the silhouette’s revival in early February, but the “Galaxy” was the first original colorway from that iconic 2011-12 run that the Swoosh brought back to market. A shock drop on February 15 set the stage for the return of the community’s favorite ensembles.

Just as we spoke it into existence last year in KICKS 26, Nike wasn’t hanging it up like they
did with the 2018 release of the KD 4 “Thunderstruck” after Durant and the Warriors claimed the title. The Swoosh combed through the catalog and hand-selected the best of the best. Nothing but haymakers for months.

In late May, we were blessed with the topographical “Weatherman” joints as images of cargo pants and color-coordinated tees screamed of a bygone era. By the time you have this magazine in your hands, what some consider the most acclaimed colorway of Durant’s 17 signature sneakers will have returned, with the aesthetic of rubber-tipped bullets and plastic magazines. The KD 4 “Nerf” is upon us. And while it won’t be packaged in the same square box that held a cardboard mini hoop and foam basketball, those same pops of deep blue, gray, orange and volt will be transporting everyone back to memories of denting the closet door with All-Star-caliber dunk contests in their childhood bedrooms.

The releases have been timely yet staggered, allowing more than enough breathing room between each drop to reignite the deep-rooted passion that exists for that midfoot strap. Nike knows they’ve got us in a vice grip. It’s why they’re reportedly set to close out the 4s retro run with a duo of bangers, the copper and black “Christmas” colorway and the heart-tugging “Aunt Pearl” rendition—the first of a now 13-silhouette-strong series dedicated to KD’s late aunt.

The past seven months have been a bunch of nostalgia-induced trips down memory lane. We’ve been living in the parallel reality that we dreamed about just a few years ago. It’s back on the streets, on the courts and in closets all around the world. Lucky for us, the story of the 4 continues.

Photos via Getty Images and Nike.

The post 4 Ever: Looking Back at the Return of the Iconic Nike KD 4 in Retro Form appeared first on SLAM.

There’s an elite group of current NBA players who are Nike athletes with signature sneaker lines: LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Devin Booker and Ja Morant. An argument can be made that none of those future Hall of Famers has the best Nike sig on the market at this exact moment. There’s a strong case that Sabrina Ionescu, the New York Liberty sharpshooter, currently holds the heavyweight belt.

Ionescu took the hoops world by storm in college and put together one of the best amateur careers ever. She was the first player in NCAA history with 2,000+ career points, 1,000+ career rebounds and 1,000+ career assists; she shattered the NCAA triple-double record; she broke the Pac-12 (RIP) all-time assist record…and those are merely a handful of her many accomplishments while starring for Phil Knight’s pride and joy, the University of Oregon.

Sabrina’s been killing shit for so long, and it’s scary to think she’s just now entering her prime. She’s proved that she belongs in any conversation in which the greats, men or women, are being discussed. She further solidified that when, after setting the all-time WNBA All-Star Weekend Three-Point Contest record in 2023, she went toe-to-toe with Stephen Curry at this year’s NBA All-Star Weekend.

Ionescu fell just 3 points shy of Curry in what was the first-ever NBA vs WNBA Three-Point Contest, but even a blind man could see that Ionescu was right where she belonged—under the brightest lights, front and center on a basketball court, representing both a group of women who’ve arrived and a group of young girls who are on the way.

“Just to be able to have this be the first of this kind of event and come out here and put on a show but understanding what this means,” said Ionescu. “I’m excited to change the narrative and be able to do it alongside the greatest to ever do it.”

It wasn’t just Ionescu’s sweet stroke that captivated the eyes of viewers; her kicks did, too. She was sporting her Nike Sabrina 1s in a clean colorway of Liberty hues.

On a few occasions, Ionescu spoke to the idea of the Sabrina 1s embodying a story about defying those who doubted her ability to play basketball, let alone with boys, when she was growing up.

Well, defy she did. With the Sabrina 1s, Nike and Ionescu laid the foundation of a gold mine for her signature line, as they quickly became one of the more popular on-court picks among the basketball community.

“Not a women’s basketball shoe or a men’s basketball shoe, but just basketball,” Ionescu said to ESPN this year, when describing the Sabrina 1s. “Being able to tell that story and have people authentically buy in and respect that, I think the time is now in terms of wanting that to be pushed.”

Everywhere you look(ed)—high school, college, the WNBA, the NBA, your local basketball gym—you are/were sure to see a fair share of feet in various colorways of the Sabrina 1. The model was the fifth-most played in sneaker in the 2023-24 NBA season, with players clocking a total of 17,209 minutes played in the silhouette.

And if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Ionescu and Nike are running it back and running it up.

Sabrina and the Swoosh launched Ionescu’s second sneaker, the Nike Sabrina 2, along with an apparel collection this past June. Instead of a complete design overhaul, they built upon the first silhouette, maintaining a similar shape, cut and cushion.

“At the center of the collection is the Sabrina 2 signature sneaker, built for players who want to accelerate and cut with quickness,” the brand said. “Nike design teams partnered closely with Sabrina to combine the best of the Sabrina 1 with fresh upgrades that create a sneaker that’s 28 grams lighter and doesn’t sacrifice support, stability or comfort.”

Some of these “fresh upgrades” include a Cushlon 3.0 foam midsole (the first ever in a Nike Basketball sneaker), a Nike Zoom Air Unit in the forefoot, an updated band system around the midfoot and a new “S”-inspired pattern that provides multidirectional traction for quick cuts. Additionally, select colorways will showcase mirror-finished Swooshes, which Nike explains are “an affirmation from Sabrina to the next generation to see themselves in the shoe.”

At first glance of the Sabrina 2, and even the Sabrina 1, it’s obvious where Ionescu’s inspiration comes from. Two sneakers in, and her signature line has drawn early comparisons to Kobe Bryant’s.

Throughout her storied college career and early years with the Liberty, Kobes were Ionescu’s go-to sneaker. The fact that Ionescu’s line is mentioned in the same breath as Bean’s says a lot about the WNBA All-Star’s cultural appeal, but more importantly, her ability and commitment to leading the push to elevate the women’s game to national, and ultimately global, mainstream relevance. It’s a vision she and Kobe shared.

Ionescu first met Kobe in 2019 when he and his daughter Gigi pulled up to watch her Ducks dismantle the USC Trojans. Ionescu developed a close relationship with the Bryant family shortly thereafter. Kobe kept tabs on her throughout the season, often sending words of encouragement as she continued to etch her name in the history books. That summer, Ionescu trained with Gigi and even helped Kobe coach his girls’ team, of which Gigi was a member.

“If I represented the present of the women’s game, Gigi was the future, and Kobe knew it,” Ionescu said during her tribute at Kobe and Gigi’s Celebration of Life service in 2020.

It’s over four years later, and Ionescu still “represents the present.” And at only 26 years old, she represents the future, too. Think Kobe rocking No. 8 for the purple and gold.

“I grew up watching Kobe Bryant game after game, ring after ring, living his greatness without apology,” she recalled. “I wanted to be just like him, to love every part of the competition, to be the first to show up and the last to leave, to love the grind, to be your best when you don’t feel your best and make other people around you the best version of themselves. And to wake up and do it again the next day. So that’s what I did: Wake up, grind and get better. Wake up, grind and get better.”

If you see Ionescu walking through the tunnel before a game, scroll through her Instagram feed or observe her demeanor during interviews, you’ll see a charming personality that everyone likes being around. But underneath that is a fierce competitor who approaches her craft with utmost seriousness and focus, with a long list of results to show for it.

As we go to press during the Olympic break, the New York Liberty are hitting on all cylinders and have the best record in the W by a comfortable margin. Ionescu is averaging 19.8 points, 6.1 assists, 4.4 rebounds and 1 steal playing a career-high 33.7 minutes per game.

Ionescu’s impact on the court is undeniable, and her influence off the court is just as powerful. On the heels of the Sabrina 1 and with the latest release of the Sabrina 2, she continues to push the boundaries and create waves for those coming after her, like fellow Nike signature athletes A’ja Wilson and Caitlin Clark—each reported to have their first signature sneaker coming soon.

Ionescu is programmed for greatness—all she has to do is continue being confident and unapologetic about who she is and what she brings to the table, just like Kobe.

Ionescu is a blessing to the game of basketball, and her presence will transcend well beyond her playing days, just like Kobe.

Once, while in college, she said Kobe texted her. “Be you, it’s been good enough, and that will continue to be good enough.” He wasn’t lying.

“I wanted to be a part of the generation that changed basketball for Gigi and her teammates,” said Ionescu in her tribute, “where being born female didn’t mean being born behind, where greatness wasn’t divided by gender.”

From her consistently dominant play to the huge success of the Sabrina 1 and now the 2, there doesn’t seem to be a height that Ionescu can’t reach. For the younger generation who wasn’t lucky enough to watch Kobe in real time, just watch how Ionescu, one of his closest mentees, dissects her opponents with a relentless will to excel.

And in her new Sabrina 2s, she’s gonna look magnificent doing it.

Photos via Getty Images and Nike.

The post The Sequel: Uncovering the Inspiration Behind The Nike Sabrina 2 appeared first on SLAM.

Devin Booker is different. The way he approaches the game is different. His obsession with decades past, definitely different. His extensive classic car collection, different. His Arizona home decked out with tastefully placed vintage furniture, different. His historian-like knowledge of basketball sneakers, mad different. How he’s approached the life cycle of his debut signature shoe—the Nike Book 1—has been emphatically different.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say. And with an eye as unique and curated as Devin Booker’s, his debut signature sneaker was bound to be the culmination of years’ worth of meticulous passion and patience.

Off rip, the Book 1 looks unlike anything Nike has brought to the hardwood in years’ past. It’s refined simplicity with a regal accent. Buttery-soft leathers, a rounded toe box and simple stitched overlays all create an off-the-court aesthetic coupled with a crazy court feel. Plush is an understatement.

Set atop a Cushlon 2.0 foam midsole and a top-loaded Zoom Air bag in the forefoot, Booker and lead designer Ben Nethongkome infused a cohort of premium materials and tech into his debut signature.

The Book 1 echoes the essence of a museum, casting a compilation of vintage and modern textures throughout the low-top. Depending on the colorway’s inspiration, the finish is bound to wax and wane, like the cracked detailing reminiscent of the Phoenix desert in the forefoot of the “Chapter One” or the smoothed touch of the tonal tan “Mirage.” In the midst, a thickly stitched work wear textile adds an emblematic depth to the mid-foot panel.

But before we dive in too much deeper, we need to take a journey. A physical and metaphorical one. A journey through the mind of Devin Booker and the literal path he walked from the dew-fallen ground of Beaverton, OR, to the scorched pavement of Arizona.

Nike’s 24th athlete to have a signature shoe has been heavily committed to the signature process. The evidence is overwhelming. Taking a trip to the Department of Nike Archives—DNA, for short—in Beaverton early in the model’s 18-24 month production cycle sparked the vision that Booker has since brought to life.

His first silhouette serves as an homage to the firsts in Nike Basketball history: the Air Force 1, the Air Jordan 1 and the Nike Blazer, the first Nike basketball shoe. Drawing inspiration from Booker’s ‘72 Chevy Blazer K5—where he preserved the vintage exterior and souped up the interior with a modernized engine—the Nike Book 1 explores an aesthetic that bridges decades. The result is a future classic crafted with a sea of lavish materials and a historic level of storytelling that can only be found in the mind of the 27-year-old.

During All-Star Weekend, Booker invited media members and close friends to an intimate library lounge to celebrate the debut of the Nike Book 1 in the “Mirage” colorway on the SNKRS app. Various colorways weaved throughout bookcases that lined the walls of the dimly lit room. Large leather-bound boxes inscribed in gold foil lay on wooden tables housing the inaugural sneakers. This was more than just input. A true, authentic collaboration was taking shape. An alliance that featured many, many exclusive iterations.

Throughout the 2023-24 NBA season, Booker showed his vast appreciation and understanding of the Beaverton brand’s history via an assortment of Player Exclusive colorways. On Christmas Day, he unveiled an homage to his father’s favorite shoe, the Air Max 95, in the 1995 “Neon” color blocking. A tribute to the legendary Air Jordan XI “Cool Grey” landed in early November. And those “Be Legendary” Kobe 4 and Kobe 5 colorways he was hooping in a few years ago? Yeah, he transformed them into their own matching ensembles.

His love for the outdoors was channeled through the infamous ACG Air Mowabb “Twine” colorway, matching the “Teal Charge/Club Gold/Twine” trifecta to a tee. And his refined, classic mystique emerged with a salute to the circa 1972 Nike Cortez in the white, red and blue color blocking that Forrest Gump was kicking around in the 1994 film.

The Air Jordan 1’s construction wasn’t the only inspiration that Book drew from the landmark model. The “Metallic Purple” and “Shattered Backboard” compositions were given their due shine, too. Classic after classic. OG after OG.

While the Book 1 made pit stops throughout Nike’s sneaker mile markers, several nods to Book’s personal tastes appeared on the floor of Footprint Center. A triple-black treatment embroidered with a crisp white Detroit Tigers emblem arrived in early November. An icy blue throwback to his 2019 “Moss Point” Air Force 1 Low touched down a few weeks later. And a white clad concoction devoted to one of his favorite shows, Narcos, materialized in late March.

For the past 10 months, Devin Booker has been slowly reinventing the level of involvement for a signature athlete. The approach has been methodical, calculated, timely, purposeful; a canvas for his dedication to the process and the ones who came before. This sneaker, this moment, is decidedly Devin Booker.

The colorways, the mixture of fabrics, the tongue tab, the sleek aesthetic, even the ambiance found in the room out at All-Star Weekend, it’s all a result of who Devin Booker is at his core.

There’s a reason the model’s debut “Mirage” colorway smoked on the SNKRS app in minutes. Devin Booker just gets it. He cares about the storytelling, cares about materials, cares about creating moments. Devin Booker is a different level of tastemaker.

Photos via Getty Images.

The post Open Book: Chronicling the Ingenuity Behind Devin Booker’s Debut Signature Sneaker, the Nike Book 1 appeared first on SLAM.

By the time the already-dubbed “King James” appeared on the cover of SLAM #78 at the midway point of his rookie season, the most hyped prospect in league history was already meeting, and even exceeding the hype.

“It’s only the beginning,” read the cover text. 

He was lacing up his first signature shoe, the Nike Air Zoom Generation, throughout his historic 20.5.5 rookie year. Only Oscar Robertson and Michael Jordan had tallied up those kind of points, rebounds and assists totals during their debut seasons by that point. 

It wasn’t just the League that had stamped him as the future — Nike coined him “generational” off top, with a record-setting $90-million rookie shoe deal and a signature series.

To celebrate SLAM’s 30th Anniversary year in 2024, we teamed up with brands around the industry to highlight the players, the covers and the sneakers that have made their mark on hoops culture during that time. We created some fire collabs as a result, layering in the details and memories that have led to SLAM making its mark as a Hall of Fame inductee all these years later for the Class of 2024.

One of the most frequent cover athletes in SLAM history, LeBron James has undoubtedly made a generational impact on the magazine.

The history between SLAM and Bron is also long stamped. SLAM was there early, shooting a young James in Akron during his SVSM High School days and throughout his time as a perennial “Mr. Ohio” player of the year, where he led the Irish to three state championships.

The text behind the tongue of the new SLAM x Nike Air Zoom Generation is updated from the cover and says as much: 

“Since The Beginning…” 

Flipping the hues of his first shoes, a rich red takes on the base color, while a series of design details celebrating his debut signature silhouette all come to life.

The red and black colorway ties back to the original cover shot and the shoe’s iconic first print magazine ad imagery, where James is wearing an era-specific pair of red velour pants.

There’s also a nod to his very first PE, the “Laser” Generations worn on Christmas Day, which was also the first lasered hoop shoe to hit the NBA hardwood.

We created a detailed lasered graphic highlighting the SLAM logo, James’ upbringing in Akron and his first year with Nike that tells the story further.

“I created the hype myself, by playing the way that I play,” reads the inner laser print.

It’s a reference to a standout James quote within the cover feature, when he was asked about what caused the circus and expectations that surrounded him at the time.

In January of 2003, when Nike first wanted to fast-track the design process of creating a signature shoe for LeBron — who was in the middle of his senior season at SVSM — a few potential shoe names were floated. 

“Air King James” was an option on the very first email that proposed the rushed timeline to design and develop the shoes in order to make a December launch.

When the original developer Jeff Johnson entered the shoe into Nike’s internal factory development system, he came up with an (admittedly easy to crack) code name instead, since LeBron hadn’t yet officially even signed with Nike:

“Air Zoom Norbel.” 

There’s a variety of easter eggs and details from the early days of LeBron’s generational starting point with Nike layered into the lasered side panel graphic, box sleeve design and insole throughout. 

While the full Nike track suit and Nike headband may have given it away, when he showed up to a news conference on May 22nd in 2003 to announce which brand he’d be signing with, a simple declaration was all that was needed:

“I’m a Nike guy,” said James.

That statement, his original ‘LJ23’ logo, the ‘KING23’ graphic from his first apparel collection and his then-viral ‘CHOSEN1’ back tattoo are all incorporated into the lasered graphics along the sneaker.

The molded parts on this SLAM Zoom Generation that draft off of his much-discussed silver Hummer H2 are all in chrome, to honor his 18th birthday gift. Along the heel, “SLAM” is also embroidered in the Hummer font. Both the original ‘LJ23’ logo and SLAM ‘S’ can be found stitched along the tongue tabs.

For the very first time, there’s a collar Swoosh placement, just as designer Aaron Cooper originally sketched them up. The logo location was a big debate throughout the year leading into that late 2003 launch, with the Swoosh “bouncing back and forth” on a variety of samples, according to “Coop,” up until the very end.  

“That was constantly the question, ‘Is it a Nike shoe, or LeBron’s signature shoe?’” Cooper told me last year.

“If he was already established in the NBA and it was a more bold signature shoe, it would’ve been directly called ‘The Air LeBron,’ had the Swoosh up on the collar and said ‘KING’ on the side instead of ‘NIKE.’”

With Nike plunking down the aforementioned $90 Mil, and pressure mounting on the shoe all along, a larger logo would only help to better establish the brand and the player together from the start, so the thinking went.

Before even getting to a Phil Knight or Mark Parker call from up top, the logo dilemma simply came down to a vote from LeBron.

“In our conversations, LeBron felt like he hadn’t proven himself,” continued Cooper. “He said, ‘Because I haven’t played yet, it needs to be a Nike shoe first.’”

Towards the very end of the sample process, Cooper grabbed Whiteout to cover up the collar Swoosh, and drew a new logo placement along the middle of the shoe. 

As we all know, LeBron more than proved himself, with this updated logo placement edition of the Air Zoom Generation speaking to the truly generational impact he has left on the game, and standing as a “more bold signature shoe” with his legacy long cemented. 

As SLAM turns 30, LeBron has also left an impact on the magazine, the readers, and the sneaker game all these years later. 

This special edition Air Zoom Generation made for friends & family links SLAM back up yet again with Bron, for one of the most detailed editions of his first signature sneaker to date. 

BUY YOUR COPY OF 30 YEARS OF SLAM

The post SINCE THE BEGINNING // This Nike Air Zoom Generation Collab Celebrates SLAM’s 30th Anniversary  appeared first on SLAM.

The soulful piano keys of “Lost One.” The bellowing horns and drum breaks on “Show Me What You Got.” The screaming high hats from “Oh My God.” These are the sounds of Paolo Banchero’s education.

“Jay-Z was one of the first rappers I ever heard in my life,” Paolo says. “That was when I was growing into my own, just as a kid, as a player. So that CD was always on in the car. I heard it countless times, just running it through, and I just grew to love it.”

SLAM KICKS 27 featuring Paolo Banchero is available now.

Glance at Hov’s discography of album covers. Then watch the way Paolo plays the game. It’s an eerily similar sight. Dimly-lit backdrops and a polished getup. There’s a suave commotion going on. A don-like figure stands center stage with thousands of eyes thrust upon his every move. In turn, the figure speaks an eloquent truth. Both words—and pivots in the post—tell the tale of one wise beyond their years.

Paolo Banchero is here. His days as a Blue Devil are gone. That Rookie of the Year award is off in the distance. He’s dropping 30 on ya head, denting defenders’ chests with his shoulder and towing the Orlando Magic back to the playoffs, with the Air Jordan 39 on his feet. Rarified opulence.

Paolo may have grown up a Hov disciple, but the self-proclaimed music connoisseur is an old soul with an ear for the new school. By February of the 2023-24 season, the soon-to-be All-Star realized he had strayed too far from his roots.

“I just caught myself listening to the same music, kind of getting bored of it,” Paolo says. “And so I was like, Man, I ain’t listening to Jay-Z! I was like, Why am I not listening to Jay-Z? I’ve been listening to all this for months. I’m like, Man, I need to go tap back in.”

He did a bit more than just tap back in. Just like he did with the stack of CDs in his pop’s car, Paolo was swiping through the legends in his music library in search of that old shit. The throwbacks. The music that nurtured his soul.

Between the last two months of the regular season and through all seven games of the Magic’s opening round playoff series against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Paolo was shuffling through nothing but Lil Wayne, Jay, Nas and Jeezy. “I felt like it gave me a new energy,” he says.

The Pelicans got served a 20-point triple-double in late March. Then there were the back-to-back 32-pieces on the road in early April. Jalen Duren got as close as humanly possible to contest Paolo’s step-back jumper, but Banchero still hit the game-winner back in February. And to close it out, a 26-point double-double to clinch the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference with a dub over the Milwaukee Bucks in the regular season finale.

This isn’t the stuff of a typical second season. His numbers—22.6 points, 6.9 boards and 5.4 dimes a night—weren’t just an increase in production from year one. We all watched as Paolo took that next step in a future superstar’s career. And he did it in year 2. Wayne’s rhymes, Jay’s tone and Nas’ cadence all fueled the master class that unfolded before our eyes.

In the week of practice leading up to the Magic’s first postseason appearance since 2020, Paolo switched everything up. Lil Baby turned to Lil Wayne. The braids that were once tied to each side of his head were now in tightly bound cornrows. And the slew of Jordan Luka 2 PEs he’d been wearing throughout the season were swapped out for the pair that sits boldly on these pages, the Air Jordan 39.

Those at the AdventHealth Training Center out in Orlando in April got the first look at the sleek mid-top solution in the wild. For days, Paolo couldn’t take ’em off. The Air Jordan 39’s cushioning set-up is fueled by the same magic that propelled Eliud Kipchoge’s world-record marathon time and Mike’s fifth championship in the Air Jordan XII. Combining that full-length ZoomX foam with Air Zoom cushioning became an addictive feeling.

“Once I put the shoe on, though, that was when I was like, It’s over. I gotta be in these. I told Sam [Druffel, Paolo’s sports marketing rep at Jordan Brand] this 39 is their best work in my opinion. As long as I’ve been with the brand, it’s their best work. It’s a super comfortable shoe, I love wearing it,” Paolo says.

That love eventually turned into us seeing the 39 earlier than even the brand had planned. Paolo was diggin’ the sig so much, he asked the team out in Beaverton if he could be the one to debut the model in Game 1 of the playoffs. With a game that so effortlessly paralleled the silhouette’s ethos, the answer was a resounding hell yes.

The 39th iteration of Michael Jordan’s signature sneaker began with Mike’s infamous cross-step. From his three-dribble rule that forced the offense to create art within simple parameters to the fluid footwork that left defenders stuck in the mud, the foundation of Michael Jordan’s game lay in trusting that simplicity. It’s why there’s only nine colorways set to release from now through next spring. It’s why the haptic print upper, the textured tongue and the tumbled leather toe box are most prominent amidst a sea of hidden premium tech. The Air Jordan 39 is the epitome of refined elegance.

The essence of clarified minimalism that permeates around the Air Jordan 39 is exactly why Paolo is leading the charge for the game shoe. His movements on the block and in transition are that of a calculated craftsman. A polished spaceship hardwired with a jet engine.

“How can I get to the basket or make a play without taking seven or eight dribbles? I think in the playoffs, that was what I really honed in on and realized,” Paolo says. “That was something that I knew coming into the playoffs—I was going to have to make a lot of mid-range shots. I was going to have to shoot catch-and-shoot threes. I was going to have to take what the defense gives me and basically cut the fat from my game and just be as efficient as I could.”

The triple-white “Sol” colorway—marked with a dash of red at the tongue’s Jumpman logo—rode with Paolo through a combined 45 points in the first two games of the series.

“It felt like I was floating. Obviously, I’m a big guy. I play with a lot of force, I cut a lot, I jump, and there’s just a lot of force being thrown around in my shoes,” Paolo says. “But those shoes, I don’t feel limited at all. I feel like I can make any movement, any cut. I can put however much force I need to into the shoe, and it’ll hold up. It just performed really well. I think I noticed it right away. Sometimes, a shoe feels stiff or a shoe feels too narrow and stuff like that. I think there was just a sense of freedom when I was in the 39 where I felt like I could move and do anything.”

At 6-10 and 250 pounds, Paolo is a walking force of nature, yet he glides across the hardwood with an unmatched fluidity. Getting bullied is unavoidable. Every team knows it. It’s why they routinely pack the paint and force him to operate in the midrange any chance they get. But that’s where the magic happens.

In that seven-game playoff series, Paolo was straight spot hunting. He wasn’t taking half the shot clock to break his guy down or analyze the rotations. Everything was an instinctive reaction. If he drove toward the paint and saw bodies, he was pulling for a middie. If he saw the slightest crack of daylight, he was absorbing contact and dishing to the open shooter. If they sagged off at the top of the key, hand down, man down.

He wasn’t worried about the stats, wasn’t worried about the percentages. He “just wanted to do whatever it took to win and get the job done.”

“That whole series, I progressed and I learned every game. The first two we lost and everyone thought we weren’t ready, and Cleveland was talking a bunch of smack, saying we were kids,” Paolo says.

The last thing that Paolo Banchero is is a kid. Scratch that. It’s not even in the vocabulary. We all watched the same maturation this year. The Magic may have dropped their first two games in the playoffs, but in Game 3? The production that played in the background of those car rides with Dad started to emerge in the back of his mind. Back to the basics. A surgical 31 points through three quarters. Jumpers met nylon. Fadeaways stood unbothered. Getting to the rim was the regimen. Drop-steps were imposing. The Magic pulled Paolo before the fourth up by more than 30.

Game 5 featured 39 points on 57 percent shooting from three. Game 6 consisted of 27, 10 of ’em in the fourth to tie the series at three a piece. “That was just dope to do in front of the fans, in front of the home crowd, just to be able to protect home court like that,” Paolo says.

From October to early May, sellouts at Kia Center became common practice. For the first time in what feels like a long time, there’s a bonafide superstar wearing the Magic blue. He rocks with the old and the new. He’s laser focused on his growth. And since the season wrapped, he’s been back in his hometown of Seattle, surrounded by the love, comfort and inspiration that raised him. He’s been refining his tools, trusting his instincts and evolving every day.

“When I first got to Orlando, there weren’t a lot of expectations for the team, and so there were a lot of expectations for me. But I wanted to have that rub off on the team. I wanted it to be team success. I wanted people to come back and start coming to the games,” Paolo says. “So it’s just been awesome seeing the fan base grow, obviously, the organization grow, us just getting more serious and being in the playoffs.

“But now I think it’s time to transition, kind of from that beginner stage of success and being happy about having success. Now, we’re trying to be one of the household names of the East and of the League. That’s not going to be easy—I know that, we all know that—but I think we’re all ready for it and we’re all excited.”

The 2023-24 season saw Paolo storm the Magic Kingdom, take the throne and reveal a path to immediate success for an entire organization. The time of chipping away at the end of the tunnel is over. The lights are shining bright, the expectations are thunderous and the hopes of an entire fan base rest upon his shoulders.

“I think eventually, when it’s all said and done, I’ll look back to my second year, last year, and kind of look at it as the start,” Paolo says. “That was kind of the start of something special.”

Portraits by Marcus Stevens. Action Photos via Getty Images.

The post Refined Elegance: Paolo Banchero Covers SLAM KICKS 27 with the Air Jordan 39 appeared first on SLAM.

The game is growing at an exceptional rate and sneaker brands like Nike and Jordan Brand have certainly taken note. Athlete rosters have rapidly expanded and multi-million dollar endorsement deals have been reached. The ladies are now the first to debut premier basketball silhouettes like Jordan NIL athlete and UCLA point guard Kiki Rice, who unveiled the Air Jordan 38 during the 2022 Sweet Sixteen. Signature shoes have returned, with Sabrina Ionescu becoming the eighth women’s signature athlete in the brand’s history, and 30th all-time. 

Just this month, A’ja Wilson and Nike revealed that they’ve been working on her first signature –the A’One–for the past year, making her the first Black women to have a signature with the brand since the Nike Air Swoopes I. 

As we celebrate the start of the 2024 WNBA season, let’s take a collective trip back through the Nike archives and celebrate the pioneers of today, and yesterday, who laid out the blueprint.

THE PAST

THE PRESENT

The post Legends of the WNBA Have Always Made Sneaker History  appeared first on SLAM.

So the brands adapted. With an impeccable roster headlined by Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi and Jewell Loyd, Nike began releasing their player’s exclusive colorways to the public. 

Bird and Loyd, each known for their affinity with Kyrie Irving’s former Nike signature shoes, received a number of colorways in the marketplace, with Bird headlining the “Keep Sue Fresh” collection that spanned from the Kyrie 4 Low to the Kyrie Infinity. 

Out in Phoenix, DT began repping ‘Bron’s signature series, from the LeBron 9 and LeBron X to the LeBron 19—she even had compiled an extensive Mercury-colored collection of LeBron PEs, including the LeBron 18 “La Cabra”—which translates to the GOAT in Spanish.

In Washington, six-time All-Star Elena Delle Donne was paying homage with her PE rotation, dawning a Swoopes I-inspired colorway of the Nike Hyperdunk 2017 alongside a steady influx of KD 12s. But at the tail end of the 2019 season, Delle Donne flipped the script, electing to wear a lace-less model, the Nike Air Zoom UNVRS. Constructed around the brand’s newest technology, Flyease provided wearers with a hands-free, easy-access design geared toward those with disabilities. The latter would serve as a three year-long smoke signal of what was to come. 

In October of 2022, Nike and Elena Delle Donne officially released the Nike Air Deldon. While the high-top model wasn’t specifically marketed as a signature offering, the silhouette was as close to one as you could get. Built with Flyease technology at its foundation, the Air Deldon was inspired by the two-time MVP’s younger sister Lizzie, who is disabled. The model represented several aspects of Delle Donne’s personal journey, detailing her battle with Lyme disease on one colorway while joining Nike’s BE TRUE initiative that heralds the LGBTQIA+ community with a rainbow-treated installment.  

Then there’s Sabrina Ionescu. Before the legend of Caitlin Clark arose, Ionescu captivated the nation in college—breaking national and school records at the University of Oregon with a flashy play style and an unstoppable pull-up three. 

While standing on the shoulders of the legends that came before her, Nike announced Ionescu would be the eighth women’s signature athlete in Nike Basketball history. After 17 years, The Swoosh had returned in full to the women’s game and they flooded Sabrina’s business with support. An expansive marketing campaign, a full release schedule featuring more than a dozen colorways, a full unisex apparel collection and intricate storytelling that ran throughout the model. 

Touted as the first-ever unisex signature basketball shoe, the Nike Sabrina 1 sold out the first handful of colorways during the late summer. Then it took things to another level when the model was added to Nike’s customizable Nike By You platform. With layers of detailed fabrics, stitching and panels, the Sabrina 1 brought out the platforms’ full potential, allowing fans of the already praised silhouette to create their own 1-of-1 versions.

Custom Nike Sabrina 1s engulfed social media in the following months, with creators drawing inspiration from their favorite colorways of past signature models like the “Bruce Lee” Kobe 5. Some designs even stuck and were replicated at mass, like the titular rendition dubbed the “What The” colorway—inspired by Nike Basketball’s mid-2010s run of taking every colorway from one signature shoe and compiling it into one loud, expressive and surprisingly cohesive ensemble.

From the W and the NBA to men’s and women’s college basketball and the G-League, the Nike Sabrina 1 exploded in popularity. As soon as the 2023-24 season tipped, the low-top model quickly became a go-to for many Nike-endorsed NBA players with Mikal Bridges, Jalen Brunson, Tyler Herro and others customizing their own PEs at a frantic pace.

This time around, Sabrina’s sneaker won’t be a one-and-done: she confirmed during this year’s New York Liberty training camp that her second signature is currently in the works. 

And then there’s the long awaited announcement of the Nike A’One. As the first Black woman to receive a signature shoe with the brand since Sheryl Swoopes, A’ja Wilson continues to cement her legacy as not only a great, but a player deserving of the utmost recognition and respect. After headlining the Nike Cosmic Unity last season and dawning a regal black and gold LeBron 21 PE during the 2023 Finals, two-time WNBA Champion and New York Times Best-Selling Author A’ja Wilson has been positioned for an insanely bright future, and arrival of the A’One in the Spring of 2025 was met with top-tier marketing: Wilson posted a flick of herself wearing an iconic hoodie that read, Of Course I Have a Shoe Dot Com with the caption: “The answer to the question.” It was just as iconic as Wilson and her illustrious career. 

Wilson and Nike aren’t just only releasing a signature sneaker though—the two-time WNBA champion and MVP has been working for over a year now on a full apparel collection and signature slides, too. She’s been heavily involved in each step of the process, consistently checking in with the brand and going as far as to suggest satin-lined hoods so women wouldn’t have to wear a bonnet during travel days. 

As for other stars, in the summer of 2021, Jordan Brand announced the largest women’s roster in the brand’s history, signing Dearica Hamby, Satou Sabally, Jordin Canada, Aerial Powers, Te’a Cooper, Crystal Dangerfield, Arella Guirantes and Chelsea Dungee. Joining an established core of Kia Nurse and Asia Durr, the Jumpman went out and put pen to paper with Rhyne Howard, Dana Evans, Isabelle Harrison and Gabby Williams over the next year and a half. 

Picking up the legacy of the since-retired Moore, Jordan’s revamped athlete roster has brought a fresh perspective to the brand’s once-reserved approach to the ladies’ side of the game. Player Exclusive colorways have flooded WNBA hardwoods as a result. Kia Nurse’s Toronto Raptors-treated Tatum 1, Satou Sabally’s international-inspired Air Jordan 37 and Isabelle Harrison’s butterfly-coated Jordan Luka 2—in homage to her late sister—have each extrapolated a piece of the respective athletes’ journeys. In turn, sneaker blogs and team social media accounts have begun to add another element of storytelling to the WNBA’s atmosphere. 

Even though signature silhouettes and exclusive colorways continue to draw headlines, both Nike and Jordan have been cultivating their next generation of partners in the backdrop through the new possibilities presented by NIL. Mirroring the selectivity of their signature lineup, Nike has signed reigning National Freshman of the Year Juju Watkins, former AP Player of the Year Paige Bueckers and top high school sophomore Jerzy Williams to NIL deals. 

In the same realm, Jordan Brand has signed Rutgers-bound guard Kiyomi McMiller, LSU’s SEC Freshman of the Year Mikaylah Williams and UCLA point guard Kiki Rice. 

While it’s yet to be officially announced, Caitlin Clark has reportedly signed an endorsement deal with The Swoosh as well. Clark was one of the brand’s first NIL signings before her senior year at Iowa. 

This is just the beginning, and with investment, attention to detail, and unwavering support for women’s basketball, the renaissance continues.

Feeling nostalgic? Here’s a history lesson on how past WNBA legends paved the way in the sneaker game.

The post Today’s WNBA Legends Are Shifting Sneaker Culture  appeared first on SLAM.

After falling short of expectations in ‘94, a 52-game exhibition schedule was prepared. While the historic group of players including Lisa Leslie, Dawn Staley, Nikki McCray and Katrina McClain prepared for the ‘96 Olympics, Nike released the first-ever women’s signature basketball shoe, the Nike Air Swoopes I. The model was filled with Swoopes’ insights, highlighted by her signature “S” logo on the tongue and rounded heel tabs so she could easily get in and out of the shoes with her long nails. 

The red, white and blue colored model would be the first of Swoopes’ seven signature silhouettes, the longest signature run for any women’s basketball player. In the inaugural season of the WNBA, Swoopes would rock the Air Swoopes Zoom III. She’d win the first of her and the Houston Comets’ four-straight championships in the Air Zoom Swoopes. She recorded the first triple-double in League history and won a ‘96 Olympic Gold medal in the Air Swopes II and won the 2000 WNBA MVP in the Air Swoopes IV. 

From ‘95 to ‘01, Sheryl Swoopes ushered in a new age of marketability and potential for women and young girls in sports across the country. And in the place of the trail she blazed, others expanded the realm of opportunity. 

After witnessing the success of Swoopes first three silhouettes, Nike would welcome a second WNBA athlete to the signature family; Lisa Leslie. With a 101-point high school game continuing to spread the word of her dominance, the USC legend held potential from the hardwood to the runway—signing a modeling contract with the acclaimed Wilhelmina agency before joining the LA Sparks in ‘97. 

Fresh off winning Gold at the ‘96 Olympic Games and securing All First-Team honors in her rookie season, Leslie debuted the Nike Total Air 9 during her sophomore campaign in ‘98. Inspired by the lavish aesthetic of Chanel handbags that she grew up idolizing, Leslie’s first and only signature silhouette boasted a quilted leather upper and metallic swooshes that took after her love for silver jewelry. After incorporating Leslie’s design language, Nike outfitted the mid-top with a full-length Total Air cushioning system. 

From the Nike Air Max Elite to the Blue Chip II and the Huarache 2K5, the three-time League MVP rocked their marquee models designed in exclusive Sparks colors and inscribed with her “LL9” logo. 

While it typically takes anywhere from 18-24 months for a marketing plan and signature shoe to be created and officially released, Swoopes and Leslie dropped buckets in some of the first basketball shoes designed exclusively for women. By ‘98, The Swoosh would bolster its roster even further, releasing Dawn Staley’s signature sneaker, the Nike Zoom S5. Flaunting the first initial of her last name and her jersey number along the supportive strap, the glove-like model would receive a follow-up in the Zoom S5 II in ‘99. In that same year, Cynthia Cooper-Dyke entered the chat after headlining the Nike Air Max Shake ‘Em Up in her rookie season. 

Named after her jersey number, the Nike Air C14 witnessed the Houston Comet’s third-straight WNBA Championship and cemented Nike’s stake in the women’s game. Five signature shoes in five years.

To champion its female-led roster, Nike did what they did best, cook up a fire commercial. Not just one, but three. Headlined by a young Kyla Pratt, the circa ‘98 “Little Rascals” showcased three young girls peppering Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes, Cynthia Cooper-Dyke and Tina Thompson with questions and opinions about their game. 

While Nike rolled out the red carpet, Jordan Brand—not even a year into the establishment as its own independent brand underneath Nike—launched its basketball shoe designed and geared exclusively toward women. Releasing it in the same year as the Air Jordan XIII, the Jordan OG shared a similar design language with dimple-stitched sidewalls and a carbon fiber shank in the midsole while the heel was decorated with an embroidered jet-black W.

SLAM 29 cover star Chamique Holdsclaw would revolutionize the turn of the century. As Cooper, Staley, Leslie and Swoopes headlined Air Max and Zoom Air-based cushioning systems, Chamique led the way for the brand’s latest on-court technology, Nike Shox. 

The iconic Nike Shox BB4 became a staple for Holdsclaw in ‘01. Her version, however, pulled from a space-themed inspiration, sporting a porous pattern laid across the leather sidewalls that mimicked moon craters. After securing the ‘02 Scoring Title, Holdsclaw held down the debut of her own signature, the Nike Shox Mique II.

Three years later, a future contender for the GOAT title would arise, marking Nike’s sixth women’s signature athlete: Diana Taurasi. The reigning Rookie of the Year entered the ‘05 season with the Nike Air Taurasi in tow, doing damage in UConn and Mercury-based colorways. Her Maserati-inspired signature logo sat proudly along the outer heel above a sea of quilted stitching. 

The following season saw DT and The Swoosh run it back, switching from an Air-based cushioning solution to the wildly popular Shox technology. Aside from the orange and purple palettes and “Taurasi” printed insoles, the Nike Shox DT explored a much more reserved approach to the signature solution. Instead, the mid-top model was marketed toward high school teams that often wore matching sneakers in unison. Throughout ‘06, the Shox DT released a myriad of team bank colorways that could easily match with girls’ basketball teams across the country. Yet Taurasi’s second sneaker would be the final women’s-specific signature series released by the brand in nearly two decades. 

In the place of signature offerings came a more centralized focus on the brand’s tried-and-true solutions. The ‘02 season saw the Nike Shox Stunner extend a far-reaching dominance. Four-time All-Star Tina Penicheiro frequented an exclusive purple, white and silver colorway with an embroidered Portugal flag while Tina Thompson’s contrasting red pair sported “Cali Girl” in royal blue cursive along the ankle strap. 

Both Sue Bird and Seattle Storm teammate Lauren Jackson were known for stockpiling heat in the Pacific Northwest, dicing up the W in PEs of the Zoom Soldier V, and the heralded Huarache 2K4. Lindsey Harding, Deanna Nolan, Tamika Catchings, Bird and Jackson all made the Nike Air Flight Elite a staple in ‘07. 

Those reserved colorways weren’t just held for the players. In 2011, Nike showed the entire LA Sparks organization some love to celebrate their 15th season, releasing an extremely limited 24 pairs of the Nike Zoom Hyperfuse in the team’s eccentric color scheme. 

That same year, Jordan signed one of the greatest players ever: Maya Moore. 

Entering her rookie season with the Minnesota Lynx, Moore headlined the brand’s suave, sleek and equally explosive ethos. During her reign in the W, Moore touted Jordan’s full line of on-court solutions, from the Jordan Fly Wade and the Jordan Super Fly to the Jordan Game shoe; the modern continuation of Michael Jordan’s signature line that’s currently on its 39th iteration. Moore rocked exclusive colorways and textures. The Air Jordan 28 through Air Jordan 32 became a blank canvas for gradients and hues inspired by the Lynx color scheme, marbled, lenticular and galactic patterns and of course her signature logo. 

Off the court, the former WNBA MVP explored her taste through the lens of the Air Jordan retro silhouettes. Rich fabrics and colorful palettes filled a number of models inspired by Moore including the Air Jordan 1, Air Jordan X and Air Jordan XI. 

Despite the care, dedication and creativity that was poured into Nike and Jordan’s mainstay models, the absence of a leading female presence in the signature basketball space certainly became a point of contention over the years. 

Looking to expand your WNBA sneaker knowledge? Read more on how the current legends of the W are creating their own renaissance movement.

The post How Former WNBA Legends Forever Changed The Sneaker Landscape appeared first on SLAM.

Our minds change when we travel. Being given time and space to think while up in the air allows ideas to form. The shifting time zones and landscapes brings wondrous feelings of inspiration. In these busy, busy days, we sit in our seats, look out or look up, and our minds wander. We’re blessed to have physical transportation further our emotional transformations. Journeys to different places make us into different people. Creativity flows and new art emerges. 

With all these years of adventuring, P.J. discovered a way to communicate his long-winding story. 

The “Sky Blue” Nike Air Flight ’89 is inspired by the countless flights that he’s taken. “Flight PJ17” is on the heel because this specific colorway takes its cue from the Boeing 777-300er that flies through the heavenly blue sky where metamorphosis occurs on the daily. P.J. took it even further by only making 472 pairs of these, a direct callback to the exact number of seats on a 777-300er. 

P.J. knows all about the sky, just like he knows all about sneakers. Picking the Air Flight ’89 for this colorway illustrates just how much he cares about staying true to his passion of rocking kicks that he personally loves. With a massive supply of more popular silhouettes at his disposal, he went with a deep cut—straight from the feet of Scottie Pippen. 

Originally known as the Nike Air Flight Low, this silhouette dropped back in 1989. Some will say it’s related to the Air Jordan IV because of its nearly-identical outsole and lace-locking system. Also, Tinker Hatfield (no stranger to long flights either) designed this pair, as he did the AJIV. But whether or not it’s actually related to the IV, it goes down as a important piece of Nike Basketball lore. Full-grain leather sits on the upper, while an encapsulated forefoot Air unit and a visible heel Air unit cushioned Pip’s landings from those acrobatic forays to the skies of the Chicago Stadium. 

Back in August, we released P.J.’s KICKS 26 cover story. It’s an appropriate time to bring back this quote from him: “Sneakers help me emotionally through everything. Just the love for shoes keeps my mind off of a lot of bullshit that I could be thinking about and dealing with. The love and the job, especially now just because we got so much going on within sneakers, culture, fashion and everything. It’s something that gives my mind a break off of everything else that’s going on around me. And I think different people have different things in their lives that, over years, they kind of figure [themselves] out, you know, things that make you happy. You know, you build a garden in your backyard, whatever it is. Wednesday night bowling with your boys. Everybody has something, and sneakers [have] always been my kind of release of everything where it’s just natural and I just love it.”

The post Inside the Inspiration: P.J. Tucker x ‘Sky Blue’ Nike Air Flight ’89 appeared first on SLAM.

As the pinnacle of college basketball begins, sneaker trading app Tradeblock is celebrating accordingly, kicking off a first-of-its-kind tournament challenge featuring the best sneaker drops from 2020 to 2023. All you’ve got to do is hit a perfect bracket, and $25,000 could be yours. 

Instead of your typical geographical regions, Tradeblock has sectioned off all four areas of the bracket based on a sneaker release year. After polling their online community for accurate seeding, a total of 68 different sneaker releases have been pitted against one another. Collaborations run rampant from Travis Scott and Off-White to J. Balvin while Zion Williamson’s “Voodoo” Air Jordan 1 Lows and a duo of Kobe Bryant signatures make for the perfect tournament sleepers. 

For us, there was only ever one championship matchup in mind; the Nike Kobe 6 Protro in the “Reverse Grinch” and “Mambacita” colorways. In the end, the “Reverse Grinches” got the nod for their striking clad-red color blocking that’s become just as heralded as the regal purple and gold pairs the Black Mamba became synonymous with. 

Inspired by the millions of college basketball hopefuls itching to craft that one perfect bracket every year, a grand prize of $25,000 will be awarded to the individual(s) whose brackets align perfectly with the selections of Tradeblock’s internal committee. And just like March, upsets are inevitable. In the event that no perfect brackets remain, Tradeblock will award $10,000 to the individual(s) who accumulated the most points in their bracket; with one correct matchup prediction equaling one point. 

Head over to Tradeblock to fill out your own bracket with a chance to win $25,000 at the end of the tournament. In order to qualify, make sure you’ve got your bracket set before March 31st at 11:59 pm CT. 

The post Tradeblock Announces Sneaker March Mania Bracket Challenge appeared first on SLAM.

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Originally released in 1996, the Nike Air Penny 2 was the second official signature silhouette for the extremely unique Penny Hardaway. A 6-7 point guard, Penny was blessed with extreme athleticism that he then paired with high-IQ decision making.

This “Baroqoue Brown” edition of the 2 has a leather upper that’s complimented by a mesh tongue. Nubuck mudguards, underfoot carbon fiber and visible Nike Air finish things out for the silhouette. And just so you remember how incredibly nice Penny was, 1Cent is one of King James’ favorite players ever. 

The post The Nike Air Penny 2 is Part of a Big Sneaker Legacy appeared first on SLAM.

There is mystery under the water. There is mystery above the water, even far away from the water. Parenthood is a mystery. Nothing is guaranteed. 

LeBron James found himself a pearl through diving into parenthood. His daughter Zhuri is the precious treasure that he guards as if he were an oyster. 

Zhuri, along with the idea of an oyster hiding a pearl, serve as the inspiration for the Nike LeBron 21. Longtime lead LeBron designer Jason Petrie worked together with the King to develop the idea of protection being the 21’s main theme. With that knowledge in mind, oysters and pearls begin to visibly break through the design language of the latest silhouette for number 23. 

Like those pearls that hide deep under the water, the 21 has a pearl detailing that hides under the outsole. The center of the outsole is carved out to reveal the shank plate that helps with torsional rigidity. And what’s on the shank plate? A pearl design.

The 21’s overall design is playing off the pearl idea, too. Materials have varied from colorway to colorway, but the heel is uniform—its line are shaped like an oyster. 

Functionally, the 21 has Zoom Air units in both the forefoot and the heel. But there is a difference from the front of the sneaker to the back of it. The Cushlon carrier foams have different densities from heel to forefoot, meaning that there is firmer foam in the heel and softer foam in the forefoot. Each heel strike in the 21 contains a progression from the firmer foam to the softer foam. 

Colorways of the 21 have also been related to different pearls and oysters. Nike has so far revealed the “Abalone,” the “Tahitian,” the “Freshwater, the “Akoya” and the “Dragon Pearl” editions. Other colorways currently lay hidden. Let’s dive into the unknown to find more. 

The post Zhuri James and a Very Unexpected Source Inspired the Nike LeBron 21 appeared first on SLAM.

The Full Force was influenced by the Air Force 1 Low and by a few other pairs from yesteryear. The Force logo on the midsole is reminiscent of the kicks that used to be worn by a rebounding machine who played in Philadelphia and then Phoenix. That’s for the heads. But the Full Force is for everybody.

Get your pair of the Nike Full Force Low.  

The post The Nike Full Force Low is Back From the Future appeared first on SLAM.

Signing with Skechers is a big move, tell us about your decision to wear and represent the brand.

Anyone who has followed me throughout my basketball career can see that originality is extremely important to me both on and off the court. I feel like Skechers is similar. I am excited to join a team that does things unconventionally and can’t wait to be part of the brand’s first launch into basketball. 

As a brand ambassador, you’ll be helping launch the first Skechers basketball shoes. What does that mean to you? How do you envision this partnership elevating your performance on the court? 

It means a lot to me to join the Skechers family and feel part of a team that places just as much value on comfort, high-performance, and quality as they do on unique style. I’m excited to partner with them as they continue to roll out more styles and build court shoes that are meant to be played by the pros.  

Tell us about your favorite performance features in the new lineup of Skechers Basketball shoes. My favorite feature of the Skechers basketball shoe is really just the comfort. I love how the SKX Resagrip basketball shoes look and feel on my feet. 

You’ve been providing feedback to Skechers to help develop a basketball sneaker that meets your needs on the court. Tell us about that process and what you needed most in a basketball shoe? 

Being a part of the process of developing a shoe has been pretty cool. I’ve been able to give feedback on things like grip and comfort, and Skechers has made adjustments based on all of my feedback. We’ve really been able to work together to create the perfect shoe for me. 

How would you describe your style of play? How does Skechers Basketball shoes help you in your game?

I’m a dynamic player and I’m all over the court. I’m the type of guy who will play whatever position and do whatever’s needed to help my team. Skechers basketball shoes reflect my style of play because they support every movement. I feel bouncy when I need to jump, light on my feet running up and down the court, and they have the grip I need when I’m trying to change directions or lock in on defense.

Now that you’ve finalized your footwear deal with Skechers, what are your aims going into the new NBA season?

I’m just looking to grow my game and be the best teammate I can be. I’ve worked super hard in the offseason, and I want to compete for an NBA Championship. 

How would you describe your style when you’re not on the basketball court? 

I would describe my style as clean, thoughtful, diverse. I love to mix up my looks and incorporate brands that maybe aren’t on everyone’s radars. 

The post Terance Mann on Signing With Skechers and Goals For This Season appeared first on SLAM.

“Like Joël said, I’ve worked on a lot of game shoes,” Lefferts, the embroidery expert, says. 

“Materials have such an emotional impact, especially in Jordan. If you look at the AJXI, patent leather. It also has to feel, like, instinctively like it’s Jordan, which, to me, this did.”

The post The Air Jordan 38 is Woven Through History by Expert Craftsmanship appeared first on SLAM.

Named in honor of his uniform number, the curvy, almost dream-like (I see puffy clouds) KB8 was considered an addition to the Feet You Wear line that Bryant had rocked previously, with its round edges making the silhouette extra agile, comfortable and good looking. The KB8’s tech features—mesh lining, EVA midsoles and adi’s Torsion system—made it one of the most advanced basketball shoes to hit the market. Unsurprisingly to those who know the game, Bryant’s second season in the NBA represented a major step forward: he started the All-Star Game, upped his scoring average to 15.4 ppg and helped the Lakers reach the Western Conference Finals for the first of many times in his career. On the court, his star only grew. Adidas rode Kobe’s wave straight through a number of signature releases and three straight NBA championships before the brand and player had a falling out during the 2002 offseason.

After an epic ’02-03 sneaker free agent season that saw Bryant play in a variety of non-adidas sneakers, he famously signed with Nike and wore the Swoosh for the remainder of his career. A 20-year Laker who scored more points than anyone ever has in the iconic purple and gold (mostly wearing Nikes), Kobe is thought of by many fans as a Nike guy, which is fine. But old heads know: Kobe entered the game in adidas, and when history carved out a pair for him, it was the KB8. Bryant’s departure from adidas meant the brand could no longer use his name or initials on any product, but adidas knew a winning shoe when they had one. Rechristened the Crazy 8 and retroed for the first time in ’07, the classic kicks have been seen on the likes of Derrick Rose (during his ’10-11 MVP campaign, no less), Justin Bieber (during the 2011 Celebrity All-Star Game) and various young adidas NBA athletes through the years. They cause a stir every time they come back on the market. Clearly, Crazy 8s will be here forever.

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The ox and turtle remnants that were converted to archives featured the now-known-as Shang numerals. The Shang dynasty, dating back to the 14th century BC, made their own number system. 

Hundreds of years later, in the 9th century AD, Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī worked at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. The immaculately-carved fossil-colored entry ways of the House, which was also called the Grand Library of Baghdad, held local poetry, both contemporary to the time and from the past. The space was primarily dedicated to translating the globe’s most respected works of literature and academia from Persian, Greek and Latin to Arabic.

In those sacred halls, al-Khwārizmī was influenced by the work of the Shang dynasty. Their number system, founded so many ages before, helped him to introduce the entire world to the Hindu-Arabic numerals, the number system still used today in so many places across the planet. History recognizes him as the Father of Algebra.  

The momentum of the centuries caught up to those numbers al-Khwārizmī popularized. Each gained their own meaning. The number seven is particularly special. 

Numerology became a universal language because of how many people recognized the characters that al-Khwārizmī favored. Music is another universal language. Rather than the one of absolutes that numerology can be counted as, music is a language of emotions. Whether or not the lyrics of song were translated at the House of Wisdom doesn’t matter. The feelings of a well-constructed song can be experienced by any human. The scales that make up these global methods of communication contain seven notes.  

High above both the Yellow River and Baghdad, the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn had Claudius Ptolemy completely enthralled. Ptolemy, a Roman, spent his days working as a mathematician, geographer, music theorist, astronomer and astrologer. He lived in Alexandria, Egypt during the 2nd century AD. He looked up in the star-filled desert skies, spellbound by what he saw without the aid of any telescope. The planets went from eyes and straight up to his imagination, which bounced between the sand and the mysteries overhead. Ptolemy’s analyzation of these luminous bodies in the sky ultimately led to them being referred to as the seven classical planets. They are the reason that we measure weeks by seven day intervals. 

When those skies got stormy and rain pounded down across the deserts of Alexandria, the House of Wisdom and the Yellow River, and when clouds turned from puffy white to dense grey, humankind didn’t get a say in another phenomenon rooted in the number seven. The storms passed and breaking clouds brought with them the rainbow. 

The arced spectrum of light contains seven colors. In the 17th century AD, Isaac Newton identified the seven colors of the rainbow as the hues most distinguishable by the human eye. 

Seven’s history spans back thousands of years and depending on the specific belief system, it can be defined as “spirituality.”

Thousands of years have brought us to 2023, to the time of James Harden. His seventh signature sneaker is the best silhouette of the 2022-23 NBA season. It’s the best pair of his Hall of Fame career. 

Aesthetically unique, Three Stripes lead designer Jalal Enayah meant to make a sneaker that nobody had seen before. He wanted to make an extension of Harden, a ballplayer that nobody has seen before. The quilted panel on the upper can be traced back to puffer jackets that the former MVP likes to rock. And materials on the toebox vary from colorway to colorway. There have been flooded versions of red, purple, black, silver, white, yellow, orange, pink and green. A tribute to his college has been seen, while white marble and gold-heeled versions have also popped up. Every color of the rainbow has shown up at least once during the HV7’s run. 

Functionally proficient, Enayah went hard with the tech inside the 7. There’s cushioning that combines BOOST in the heel and LIGHTSTRIKE in the forefoot and it sits on top of a podular rubber outsole with dual herringbone and radial patterns. The X-shaped torsional support plate underfoot is joined by the TPU heel counter that houses the internal bootie.

Harden has gotten busy with the 7 on his foot. His 10.7 assists per game led the entire League and he still averaged 21 points a night on 44 percent shooting. After some injury-hit and drama-filled couple of years, he returned to form as one of the game’s most exceptional talents. No rush in his pace, unmovable, entirely confident in scoring whenever he chose to, the 2022-23 campaign was a reminder of who James Harden really is—a rule-breaking offensive machine. He’s one of the 2010s’ authors of change, right next to the other point guards in Golden State and Portland. Basketball wouldn’t be where it is today without his contributions to the art form. 

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Now he and Enayah have submitted another piece of art to the game. The 7 is work of science and beauty. With all these years of natural wonder and human knowledge surrounding the silhouette, the incredible performances it’s been part of, the adidas Harden Vol. 7 is the best sneaker of 2022-23. 

Sketches via Jalal Enayah

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From the Nike Air Penny 1 “Orlando,” to the Nike Air Foamposite “Galaxy,” to his most recent collabs with Stussy and Social Status, Penny’s line with Nike is a testament to his lasting influence in the game that only Jordan himself can compete with. His personal collection, a mix of new and old Nike releases ranging from lifestyle (Jordans, Air Force 1s, Dunks, etc.) to basketball (Kobe signatures), is a representation of his personal tastes and passion for the sneaker game. 

By joining the Tradeblock community, Penny will become a part of the hundreds of thousands of sneaker collectors on the platform, all of whom will now have access to his coveted collection.

This partnership will connect Tradeblock’s community with a brand ambassador and investor that understands the social and cultural importance of trading sneakers to today’s generation. Penny will serve as the first celebrity face of the brand, opening opportunities for other athletes to embrace the modern concept of sneaker trading.

“We are thrilled to have Penny Hardaway join our community and share his passion for sneakers with our members,” said Mbiyimoh Ghogomu, CEO of Tradeblock. “His legacy in the basketball world and his iconic sneaker designs have had a profound impact on the culture, and we are excited to see what he brings to Tradeblock.”

This isn’t simply a brand ambassadorship. Penny is also betting on Tradeblock to be the next big thing in sneakers by making a personal investment in the company as well.

“I invested in Tradeblock because of Mbiyimoh, Darren, and Tony. As a black-owned company, there was no way I could say no as a big fan of sneakers and understanding what Tradeblock would bring to the community.”

You can follow Penny on the Tradeblock app at @iam1cent, where you can trade directly with him or accept one of his public offers.

Tradeblock will be running a tradeaway with Penny for an undisclosed pair from his collection beginning on Monday, April 10. To learn more, stay tuned to their socials and website.

The post Penny Hardaway Announces First-Of-Its-Kind Partnership with Tradeblock appeared first on SLAM.

LeBron James has been around, though. It’s now been over 20 years since he’s been occupying his throne. There’s an insatiable appetite for everything the King does, as has been the case for the entirety of these past two decades. His sneakers are still on the feet of many. Whether they’re OG pairs from all the way back in the day, retros or new versions of the Nike LeBron 20, people in both the digital and physical world rock his kicks, comment about them, and most importantly, care about them.    

The Nike LeBron 20 NXXT Gen is an example of how far we’ve come on this specific wave of internet info. What started in the realm of esports has extended its way into the real world. A special collaboration between FaZe Clan and Nike is ending in the “FaZe” LeBron 20 NXXT Gen colorway. 

The NXXT Gen edition of the 20 is less expensive than the version that dropped back in Autumn 2022, with a slightly different build as well. 

Either tongue of this black and red edition features FaZe’s iconic “F” logo. As for the tech specs of this updated LeBron 20, it has an engineered mesh upper, Air Zoom cushioning, hits of leather on the tongue, the heel, the medial panel and the toebox and there’s a double-layered Swoosh in contrasting materials.

The King’s oldest son, Bronny, joined FaZe back in August of 2020 to be a content creator. FaZe Clan is the world’s best esports team, with a social media reach that is counted in the hundreds of millions. Bronny loves to play FPS games for the millions of people that also follow him. Both generations of the James have worn the “FaZe” LeBron 20 NXXT Gen on the court already. 

Like FaZe, and millions of people around the world, both generations of the James understand that life is starting to swing more fluidly between digital and physical. LeBron has the highest follower count of any basketball player on the planet and Bronny’s social media presence is calculated, thought out with great intention and an appreciation for documenting the art in his life. Because more and more, these invisible lines are blending, melding together so tightly and strongly that the “FaZe” Nike LeBron 20 NXXT Gen will go down in history as the first collab of its kind. But not the last. 

The post How The ‘FaZe Clan’ Nike LeBron 20 NXXT Gen Became a Reality appeared first on SLAM.

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StockX Off The Grid in Salt Lake City was laced with all the gear you need to hit the court or your next icy adventure. Shop everything StockX brought to basketball’s star-studded weekend in SLC here.

Friday kicked off with an exclusive VIP night featuring DJ Spade and 400 notable guests including Travis Scott, Don C, Chase B, Trey Murphy III, Scotty Pippen Jr, Shareef O’Neal, Jarred Vanderbilt, Speedy Morman, Jae Murphy, Jamad Fiin and more.

StockX’s authenticators were also on-hand to verify that your sneakers meet the StockX standards. They interacted with thousands of consumers, demonstrating details of the StockX verification process throughout the weekend.

Whether you’re looking for a pair of basketball sneakers or a coveted grail to hit the courts, the latest outerwear, or accessories/gear for your next snowboard trip, StockX has you covered. StockX Verified guarantees that every item that is sold on the platform goes through a proprietary multi-step verification process with a team of expert authenticators. Visit stockx.com to shop the latest in sneakers, apparel, accessories and more.

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He and Nethongkome started making the 1 by just talking. And then there was more talking. And a ton more talking. Morant was hype to get this going, emphasizing yet again what he’s said a few times in the past—he always wanted to sign with the Swoosh and get his own signature. So he and the design squad talked and talked and talked, about his wishes about his game, about previous Nike Basketball silhouettes that they’ve all loved to hoop in. 

Nethongkome went back with all of that information, studied Morant’s movements with the famous Nike Sports Research Lab to get a silhouette in the works, and then something started to take hold around the one-of-a-kind athleticism that #12 possesses. 

“Obviously, [this is] something I dreamed for, something I’ve wanted all along and finally, I got it,” Morant said post-griddy. “The process is a pretty long process. You just be ready for the shoe to come out, ready for the shoe to be done, ready for the world to know. It definitely was tough for me to keep quiet, but once they laid out that first pair, I tell them every time I see them that, ‘Y’all did it again.’ They just made my shoe come to life.”

The trio laughed at the story of Morant wearing the first prototype for the majority of a middle-of-the-process meeting, to which the former Rookie of the Year later admitted that he got “a little emotional” when he finally saw them for the first time. 

“When we met with him to unveil the shoe for the very first sample, that rough sample, he wore it the entire time,” Nethongkome told SLAM after the panel. “He was like a kid in a candy store. It must have been six hours… We were there for six, I think he had it on his feet for five.”

“A day I’d been waiting on for a long time,” Morant said. “Actually being able to finally get on the court, move, run around in them, dunk, which everybody likes that I do, it felt good.”

There are three areas of focus that had Morant so enthralled. Nethongkome calls them out as dynamic lockdown (showing up in the midfoot), a responsive forefoot and support for landing. That forefoot mudguard on the 1 helps with stability for the shiftiest player in the League. Also showing up in the forefoot is a Zoom bag. The midsole is elevated slightly in comparison to more recent Swoosh pairs, aided by a padded and plush collar. And because Morant is a two-foot jumper as he engages his personal thrusters, the sidewall guardrail was raised for when he decides to come down and join the rest of us who are gravity-bound.  

No. 12’s first sneaker also features the appearance of a brand new element. With the tunnel walk in mind (SHOUT OUT TO @LEAGUEFITS!!!), Nethongkome lifted the Swoosh up off the heel so that Morant could hold his sneakers while getting his pregame fits photographed. 

“I want him to be able to hold the shoe in a different way than other athletes when they walk in the tunnel,” Nethongkome said. “It’s integrated as a pull tab and also as a hold that encourages him to bring it into the tunnel.” He calls it a “protruding Swoosh,” holding up the 1 in exactly the way he imagined it during the 18-month creative process. 

It takes a long time to make this all happen. Over the last year and a half, Nethongkome and the Swoosh squad got to know Morant and his family pretty well. 

“I would just say he was involved and always accessible and open,” Munson told us. 

“Ja has been in the weeds with us, which is nice to have,” Nethongkome added. “He’s only a text away to get feedback.”

Samples and weartesting and colorway ideas and material resourcing and the science of how thick or slim to make the Zoom bag requires precision. All that and more is why Morant had to keep the 1 a secret for so long. And within everything that’s happened since the decision was made and this launch moment, there was enough space for a log to be kept of what Morant hoped to see realized with the 1.  

“There was a checklist of things he wanted an update on and the first thing he saw was Khairi’s name,” Nethongkome said. “So that, to me, nothing else mattered in that moment. He just was so in love with that.”

As of right now, Morant hasn’t played in too many different colorways. 

But that’s all about to change. 

“You only saw a sliver of what we’ve been working on the past 18 months and I just wish you could see what’s behind the other closets we have hidden. But just keep it locked,” Nethongkome said. “There are a lot of cool things coming out.”

True to that, Munson said during the panel that the 1 is among the richest number of drops they’ve had. He later told us about how they love to watch Morant be incredibly supportive of young kids coming up. The obvious example of that support is how he’s established a new tradition of giving away game-worn 1s to courtside fans. More than that, though, it’s what he does for his team, for people from Memphis to Dalzell, bringing so much hope and inspiration each and every time he jumps into the stratosphere and comes down to griddy. 

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Lord of the skies. 

Gifted with divine vision, with supernatural recollection. 

Physically unparalleled. 

Mentally unprecedented. 

The lion’s pride, with bark and bite of equal might. 

The doubted, the hated. 

But ultimately, the respected. 

He made his line into royalty. We witnessed it.

The conqueror. 

The ruler. 

Two decades. 

He was the believed Chosen One. 

Then he actually became the Chosen One. 

King James.

LeBron’s basketball conquests have touched every part of the map over these years, where scribes like this one have recorded his victories and his defeats in vivid detail. 

The triumphs and the failures are vital in the tales of the King whose reign began when he was just a boy. They don’t, however, share all that has happened to him, or necessary chronicle how the boy became the man. 

Not just a man—the man. Maybe the best ever.

The steps he took up in the air solidified him as the rightful Chosen One in this dance of jumpshots and passes, steals and blocks, dunks and layups. 

The legend of King James is summed up by just a single word: evolution. 

He hasn’t stayed stagnant. Once only capable of climbing ladders, he can now lace from distance. The post was foreign to him. It’s now home to him. Lefty finishes, righty finishes, hooks, fades, up-and-unders; all easy to him. Defensively, we saw him guard every single type of player, individually closing the sturdy iron gates of his kingdom when the opposing attack was most pressing. Most of all, his mind sharpened. He found some stronghold, some forge where the weapon makers were strongest. He seems to have poured their knowledge into himself, giving the fires a place to reside inside his intellect. 

His royal footwear evolved alongside his skillset. Nineteen different iterations, ranging in height, in weight, in foundational support, in material and in theory joined him along the road to his seat atop the throne. 

The 20th version is the physical manifestation of all his learnings from the past. Low, light, somehow proportionally new yet familiar, it will perhaps be registered by those same scribes as his greatest sneaker. 

Its infrastructure begins with Air Zoom built for nobility. The forefoot Zoom is top-loaded, while the heel’s 13 millimeter Zoom bag is support juiced all the way up. There’s Cushlon in the midsole, as well as a carbon fiber midfoot shank. Its woven upper and double-elongated Swooshes will allow for all those in the King’s court to craft extra regal editions throughout the year to come. There has been room left on the 20 for even more sharing of the legend. The left and right sneakers vary on the 20 with visual storytelling of LeBron’s journey, right up there on the forefoot, where steps are planted firmly in history. 

Most importantly, House James’ sigil returns in the 20. Right underneath that huge Zoom bag in the heel, the Dunkman is finally back. 

The James’ reign is looking to be dynastic. If the promise of the two princes is true, those scribes won’t be done writing for decades to come. 

The first of his name won’t be the last. 

To celebrate LeBron’s nearly 20 years of domination, here’s a collection of exclusive film photos of the Bron 20.

The post The Nike LeBron 20 Continues LeBron James’ Sneaker Dynasty appeared first on SLAM.

First Team

PJ TUCKER

Julius Caesar reigned over the mighty Roman Empire with the famous words of “veni, vidi, vici.” Those words translate to “I came, I saw, I conquered,” which Jay-Z used in a song during his mighty reign over music. Hov is PJ Tucker’s favorite musician. This season was yet another encore of conquering for the NBA’s mighty, unbeatable, unrelenting, reigning Sneaker King.

DEMAR DEROZAN

By now it’s common knowledge that DeMar DeRozan has played in every single pair of Nike Kobes throughout his career. The amount of variety, from the lows to the mids to the highs, lands him on this list yet again. What gets him second billing, though, is his “WNBA” Kobe 6 PEs. Bean’s relationship with the W needs no explanation, so please watch the WNBA and please support the WNBA in the same way DeMar DeRozan does.

STEPHEN CURRY

Stephen Curry came out the gates with an entire pack of Curry 9 colorways done in collaboration with Sesame Street. But the 9 wasn’t just another silhouette. It’s the second one in his line to obsolete rubber midsoles in favor of the Flow tech that is pioneering different construction in basketball sneakers. Many more fire colorways followed after Elmo, Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch got their shine.

TRAE YOUNG

Trae Young and adidas handled their business for this introductory silhouette. The Trae 1 was treated with numerous colorways, some of which matched the Hawks’ uniforms and some of which stood out as singular statements. “I think this shoe is going to bring out a lot of the creative ideas in my mind,” Trae told us in last year’s issue of KICKS. He was right.

JA MORANT

Sheer volume of high-level Kobes, KDs and Kyries would’ve been enough 
to land Ja Morant a spot on here. His intention on creating separation became crystal clear when he started to mix in outrageously loud customized Kobe 6s. The only part of Ja’s sneaker season that was as rare as the actual pairs was him repeating sneakers; almost every game came with something different. 

Second Team

JAYSON TATUM

Jayson Tatum has great chemistry with Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown and Al Horford and he’s just as in sync with Jordan Brand’s Senior Promo Colorway Designer Kelsey Amy. Together, the duo made dozens of Air Jordan 36 PEs that told Tatum’s story, illustrated his interests and paid homage to the legendary Kobe Bryant.

DEVIN BOOKER

Back again with his now-familiar rotation of Kobe 4, Kobe 5 and Kobe 6 PEs, Devin Booker introduced us to a couple of new 6 colorways that were adorned with, of course, “Be Legendary,” the pair of words that Kobe left him with back in 2016.

LAMELO BALL

For someone who isn’t even from this planet, LaMelo Ball did a damn good job of introducing the world to his first signature sneaker. The lead colorway’s all-red makeup contrasted crazy against Charlotte’s uniforms, while the mismatched “Rick and Morty” drop proved that traditional rules were of no concern to the 1-of-1 hooper.

DONOVAN MITCHELL

A ton of colorways, a few more colorways and then a couple of extra colorways define the D.O.N. #3’s run this past season. Spida has proven time and time again that he’s going to use his signature line to express himself, be it his love of Marvel, Monster’s, Inc. or the University of Louisville.

LEBRON JAMES

Nothing new here. Well, that’s technically not true. The King did play in the LeBron 19 this past season. And some retros in new colorways. The nothing  new here is that we’ve seen this man display an arsenal of ridiculous sneakers for almost two decades, so when he pulled out a golden version of the Nike LeBron 20-5-5 in his home region of Northeast Ohio, it was a reminder of just how long King James has been at the top.

MVP

PJ TUCKER

There’s grandeur in PJ Tucker’s consistency and his intentionality in this sneaker game. Sure as Alexander the Great rising each morning to examine how he could extend his rule across lands far away from Macedon, PJ’s extensive knowledge of history has furthered his dynastic rule as the Sneaker King. He’s the one pulling out samples that were made for Ray Allen and Gary Payton, playing in Kobe 6 PEs inspired by Kanye West’s original run of Nikes. He even played in those OG Yeezys this past season. The throne is being watched, meticulously.

Rookie of the Year

JALEN GREEN

In addition to several in-line adidas models, Jalen Green (bigggggg SLAM Fam) spent his rookie season in D.O.N.s, Dames, Hardens and Traes. But to keep it a Bucky Barnes, the real reason that our guy Jalen is getting this award is he wore the adidas Gil Zero twice. For the uninitiated, the Gil Zero is the actual silhouette that reintroduced the low top back to modern basketball over 15 years ago (absolute all due respect to Bean and his fourth sneaker). The young fella showing love to Gilbert Arenas made him the easiest pick of this entire awards section.

Most Improved

Stephen Curry

You’re for sure saying to yourself that Stephen Curry has had almost a decade of signature sneakers and that KICKS just put him on the first team from this past season a few pages back. You’re asking how it’s possible that he’s also being awarded with the Most Improved title. But never before have we’ve seen someone with such a technologically advanced main silhouette mix in old models like the Curry 1 (in new and old flavors) and the Curry 6. He also debuted the Curry 4 Flotro, an update of his iconic model from five years ago that now makes use of his groundbreaking Flow tech in the midsole. Those three factors are how this seasoned sneaker vet was a lock for Most Improved.

LeagueFits Tunnel Look of the Year

Jayson Tatum

So long ago that it almost feels like a myth here in 2022, Jordan Brand used to lace their players with amazingly beautiful colorways of retros. Seeing the old Jordans, as well as pairs in the late teens and early ’20s, in colorways that didn’t have red or black was a thrill, and those pioneering players and their PEs became legendary, lore-like figures in the annals of basketball sneaker history. Jayson Tatum pulling up to the NBA playoffs in a brand-new Air Jordan XIV PE was a brief return to the glorious days of yesteryear.

Best of the Best

Jordan

PJ Tucker

Eminem x Carhartt x 

Air Jordan VI

adidas

Jalen Green

adidas Gil Zero 

Restomod

PUMA

LaMelo Ball

PUMA MB.01

Nike

PJ Tucker

Nike Air Yeezy 2

Reebok

Montrezl Harrell

Reebok Kamikaze II Low

Under Armour

Stephen Curry

Under Armour Curry 1

The post The 2021-22 KICKS Awards appeared first on SLAM.

So, last October, when the now recently turned 18-year-old inked a deal with PUMA, he became the first American high schooler to sign with a global footwear company. The sentiment wasn’t just solidified—it was written in stone.

“When my family and I made the decision to join PUMA, we knew that PUMA had been in the game a long time,” Williams tells SLAM. “I just wanted to be with a brand that was going to let me be myself, take my input, help me perform on the court, and I wanted a chance to be different and do things differently.”

Signing on to a roster loaded with bucket-getters and larger than life figures—like two-time WNBA champion Breanna Stewart and Charlotte Hornets Rookie of the Year LaMelo Ball—not only felt like the right move for Mikey’s journey en route to the League (he becomes eligible for the NBA Draft in 2024), but it also allowed him to remain unapologetically himself.

“Hard work pays off, and staying in the lab and working on my game is the most important thing,” Williams says. “Staying true to who I am created this opportunity, and I want to encourage other young kids to do the same. At times the road is hard, but the rewards can be worth it.”

Nine months removed from that historic announcement, those rewards are being realized, as Mikey took an official visit to the University of Kansas in June. This summer, however, his premium is coming by way of spearheading PUMA’s latest innovation for the hardwood, the TRC Blaze Court, which just hit Hibbett Sports this summer.

From dropping defenders into a blender to suiting up in a matching teal puffer and Versace Trainers, Mikey isn’t the only member of his family keen to the outspoken articulation of fashion on the court. When the then-17-year-old had made his decision to sign on the dotted line, Mikey’s father Mahlon Williams—who was an All-CIF-SDS selection in his own day—began reminiscing back to the days of Walt “Clyde” Frazier’s fedoras, slick velvet suits and the many variations of his suede signature, The Clyde.

In his fullest form of expression, Mikey is dicing cats up along the perimeter in a pair of TRC Blaze Courts before slicing through help defenders for throwdowns that send spectators in slides and bulging backpacks into hysteria on the baselines.

Years of inspiration and history seep through the seams of the upper’s stitching as PUMA’s latest premier hoops silhouette draws upon both its fashion and concrete jungle origins by way of its legendary streetwear predecessor, the 2006 Blaze of Glory. Fans of one of the finest running silhouettes will appreciate the similarly constructed lacing system of the mid 2000s model that displayed a distinctive and significant lockdown fitting. And for the first time since its inception back in 1990, the brand’s staple cushioning system TRINOMIC, replicated from the honey bee’s honeycomb home, makes its debut on the hardwood.

PUMA set out to harness three fundamental concepts in the technological realization of the silhouette, directly aiming for cushioning, stability and flexibility. They then added a lightweight ProFoam + midsole for enhanced comfort alongside additional Pebax foam inserted in the heel for instant responsiveness. While the geeky tech aspects of the kicks aren’t his bread and butter, “The first thing that caught my eye was the color blocking,” Williams says.

Most recently appearing on social media pages rocking a dominant Neon Citrus colorway that’s reminiscent of the flesh of a ripe cantaloupe, the latest innovation for the court includes both black and white silhouettes contrasted with cherry tomato, sky blue and neon green accents.

Entering the final chapter of a more than dominant high school career, Williams announced back in April that he was returning to his hometown high school, San Ysidro, in San Diego. After spending the prior season expanding his skills against the country’s best at Vertical Academy in North Carolina, the Border Boys are back for one last run.

With time comes change, and as Williams prepares for his senior year, his squad has graduated eight seniors. But as the go-to option and head honcho on the court for what seems like his entire basketball life, leadership will be the furthest thing from a problem.

“I feel like I have been a leader my entire career,” Williams explains. “But as a senior, it will be my responsibility to really be that coach on the floor and help the young guys learn our system and how Coach Tuck [San Ysidro head coach Terry Tucker] likes to do things ASAP.”

Admittingly, Mikey knows everyone in the conference and state will be “gunning for us,” but that ain’t nothing new to a teenage hoops sensation with 3.7 millions IG followers who’s signing brand partnership deals left and right.

The pressure. The standards. The expectations. The responsibilities. Mikey’s been handling them for years, and like a vet, at that. Alongside guys like G-League Ignite guard Scoot Henderson, who joined Williams by signing with PUMA this June, the youth movement isn’t just budding in PUMA’s North American HQ in Somerville, MA. It’s blooming to its fullest and ready to take the basketball sneaker ecosystem by storm.

As Mikey continues his voyage both on and off the court, he’ll do so with the TRC Blaze Court on his feet.

The post Mikey Williams on Signing With PUMA and Standing Out in the PUMA TRC Blaze Court appeared first on SLAM.

DeRozan was most recently seen rocking a pair of Kobe 6s when he teamed up with LeBron James at Drew League two weeks ago. The five-time All-Star, who played in Kobes throughout high school and college, became the most active representative of the Kobe signature line after Bryant retired in 2016.

Nike and the Bryant estate could not come to terms on a new contract following Kobe’s passing but reached an agreement in March of this year, according to ESPN’s Nick DePaula. DeRozan has regularly debuted the latest Kobe models and consistently rocked older models from his collection since his rookie season.

“For me personally, he meant everything to me basketball-wise,” DeRozan told reporters when speaking about Bryant’s influence in January. “That’s well documented, a mentor of mine, a friend of mine, someone that taught me a big part of the game and motivated me to have the mentality that I have today.”

The 32-year-old earned a new deal with Nike after leading the Bulls to the playoffs for the first time in five years and averaging a career-high 27.9 points per game last season. While no specifics regarding DeRozan’s role with Nike have been announced, we can expect the Compton native to continue rocking Beans for the foreseeable future.

The post REPORT: DeMar DeRozan Signs New Deal to Remain With Nike appeared first on SLAM.

And she did so with her first signature PUMA sneaker on her feet. The Stewie 1 “Quiet Fire” was unveiled for the first time this past Friday. 

Just when you thought there wasn’t another level of greatness Stewie couldn’t reach (our coverline for SLAM 229 was, after all, Breanna Stewart Can’t Stop Winning), she continues to prove time and time again that greatness can’t be contained. At this point in her career, she’s emerged into a legend, and the arrival of her first-ever signature sneaker, the Stewie 1, is the perfect canvas to capture all of her glory. 

“Knowing that that was going to be the first one, I wanted to make sure it was something that, you know, popped,” Stewart told WSLAM just a few days before the unveiling. “And [that] when you see it, you couldn’t unsee it.”

The Stewie 1 reflects Stewart’s journey and the relentless competitor that she is. The bright and bold green and black colorway is a nod to the Seattle Storm, and there’s a flame molding that morphs in ripples of water to represent the essence of her elite game, as well as her humble personality. The Molded Heel Counter, which provides stability, features a neon green scar on the heel to represent Stewie’s two Achilles surgeries, and there’s even a North Star-inspired upper that pays homage to her high school team, Cicero-North Syracuse High School, and their mascot. 

“It’s just a way of me never forgetting where I came from,” Stewart says over the phone. 

The Stewie 1 is also equipped with multi-zoned monomesh layers for even more targeted support, along with NITRO Foam technology that gives cushioning while remaining lightweight. It was important that the Stewie 1 not only fit Stewart’s own needs as an athlete, but she wanted to create a product with PUMA that really anyone can rock. 

“No matter if you’re a guard, or a post or a style you like to play, it’s something that’s definitely for everyone. It’s a [sneaker that can] make you feel like your foot [is] fully secure, and that you’re able to kind of just not think and just play. Yeah, and the design process behind that was just really wanting to have a [sneaker] where it’s the best and just doing my best to create that understanding that, you know, I have specific needs, especially with coming off of two Achilles injuries and wanting to have that support, especially in my heel and on the scar. But you want to have something that’s comfortable and looks good, too.” 

For Stewart, making history with PUMA is just the start. Stewart is looking ahead at the next generation of young girls, as well as championing women around the game and beyond. 

“When I look back to when I was little, there was no product to wear that was a women’s basketball [sneaker]. So, you weren’t able to get a player’s [signature sneaker] and then, like, go and [try] to play like that. And now to be able to create that connection where young players can watch me play or see me play, and then also get the product and try and emulate what I do on the court and use that as motivation—I think that’s something that’s definitely going to continue to help gain interest in our sport [ and] continue to gain a following. Because the Stewie 1, you’re going to see it on the court, off the court, you’re gonna see it in a lot of different places. And for me, that’s what’s so exciting. 

“This is the first women’s basketball signature shoe in over a decade. And it’s crazy. I feel like every time I say that I’m like, I can’t believe it when you look at the amazing players in the WNBA. I hope that this just puts pressure on brands and other companies to continue to believe in women, uplift women, especially women’s basketball, and know that with everything going on, there’s no better time to invest in women and get behind us and help get us to where we need to go and help push our sport in the right direction.” 

The Stewie 1 will be available this fall.

The post Breanna Stewart Talks PUMA Stewie 1 and Having the First Women’s Signature Sneaker in a Decade appeared first on SLAM.

That heat became Jayson’s comfort zone. He’d go from lighting up the competition all throughout St. Louis to hitting up the BBQ joints all around the city. St. Louis is known for dozens of smokehouses, and folks out in the 314 have become linked to a specific way of making ribs. Rather than being slow cooked over indirect heat, they grill their ribs and douse them in hot sauce. Real talk right here: a report came out in 2015 confirms that St. Louisans consume more barbecue sauce than any other area in the entire country. 

Tatum started to get fired up in high school. His senior year at Chaminade College Preparatory School in Creve Coeur, MO, is highlighted by 10 different 30-plus point outings and six different 40-plus point outings. He was already heating up during his time with the appropriately named Red Devils. He brought his flames with him to Duke, where even on a loaded roster of offensive weapons, he managed to catch fire for seven different 20-plus point games in his lone season with the Blue Devils. It didn’t take long for the flames running through him to show up on the NBA level. As a rookie, he helped to lead the Celtics to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the mighty LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. 

Now everyone could have the soul-awakening flames that Tatum had passed down to him. Everyone, including Ruffles®. It was only right that Tatum’s official Ruffles flavor would be Flamin’ Hot® BBQ. With a spice worthy of Tatum and St. Louis, his Flamin’ Hot® BBQ flavor packs in all the heat he’s been dominating the competition with. 

Ruffles® wasn’t the only major company to notice all the flames Tatum had been burning with. The illustrious Jordan Brand also took notice of his ability to catch fire. They scooped him up in 2019 and started gifting him with player exclusive colorways of Air Jordans. 

This season, as he and the Celtics marched to the NBA Finals, he played in the Air Jordan 36. The silhouette is a technological basketball performance beast. A new upper made of Leno-Weave got rid of unnecessary weight, a full-length Zoom Strobel unit held the foundation, and a hollowed-out Eclipse Plate provided structure and unique real estate for the Jordan team to test the boundaries of colorways. 

A three-way concert kicked off between Tatum, Ruffles® and Jordan Brand. Together, the trio cooked up an Air Jordan 36 PE that honored the long history of Jayson’s spirit. Featuring Ruffles®’ signature blue, white and red, Tatum’s newest colorway boasts a printed pattern and ridge-like finishes across the tongue, collar and heel pull tab. Direct nods to Ruffles are on the outsole and the insole, where “Own Your Ridges®” is written.

The flames got extra hot when Tatum wore them against the Brooklyn Nets in Game 1 of the 2022 playoffs. He shocked the world with a twirling, game-winning layup that brought his fire all the way from St. Louis to Boston.

Want a chance to score a pair of these exclusive Flamin’ Hot kicks? From now until July 31st, Visit RufflesSneakers.com to learn how you can have a chance to win an autographed pair of Jayson Tatum’s Size 15 Air Jordan 36 “Ruffles” PEs.

The post The Story Behind Jayson Tatum’s ‘Ruffles’ Air Jordan 36 PE appeared first on SLAM.

The fluidity of a jumpshot whose current has been raging for years tells more of the Bradley Beal story. The artistry of his jumper is pure expression of him. Balanced, disciplined, learned and earned. 

Beal is a communicator and his language of choice isn’t always language. At different points, it’s been basketball and it’s been activism and it’s also been art. 

“I was a big sketch guy when I was younger, but I love abstract art now and mixed art,” Beal tells SLAM. “I’m huge on it. I love the fact, especially mixed art, with the use of different materials, whether [it’s] paint or different, just fabrics or whatever they may be using to express their art. And then just abstract art, I love the wave of it. I think it’s just more modern. There’s so many expressions into the story they’re trying to tell. And it draws my eye a lot.”

He’s still picking up the pencil and the paper and he’s the one who initially got the production of his brand new personal logo on the move. 

“It really started off with me kind of sketching,” Beal says. “Obviously, you want your logo to tell a story, you know, you want it to stick out and stand out. You want it to be able to be recognizable, people to know it’s yours and then it has to be able to tell a story. Me, naturally, I’m a silent assassin. That’s what people kind of call me. I consider myself humble and quiet and shy and reserved in some ways. But on the floor, I’m an assassin. I go attack hard, I’m aggressive and I get to it.

“And just kind of how do I intertwine those and what are some symbolic things of life, nature to implement into the design as well? So, one, my biggest representation of me is my family,” Beal continues. “I’m family-oriented and so what represents family? A family crest. So you have the protection part of it. So the logo looks like a big shield in a way. It’s a huge ‘B,’ but it’s very modern-esque in some ways. But it’s a big ‘B’ and then intertwines all in one stroke of a pen into a little ‘B,’ which is my name for Brad. So big ‘B’ represents the big family and little ‘B’ is me.  And then intertwined in that is, like, a lightning bolt off the little ‘B.’ And so silent assassin, you know, lightning and thunder. What do you hear first? And then lightning strikes. That was kind of a dope concept that we threw in and then the intertwined ‘Bs’ formulate a three naturally, which is my number inside of the logo. 

“As soon as I [saw] it, it was the perfect representation of me,” Beal concludes a few moments later. “It told my story.”

With today’s official launch of the new logo, it’s not just going to be a digital piece. It will eventually be seen in real life, on hats, clothing and, of course, on his Air Jordans. 

Beal’s grown most comfortable in the Air Jordan 36 and the Jordan React Elevation. Both of those silhouettes have Nike’s famous Zoom tech in their forefoots. Beal launches up for his flowing jumpshot off his forefoot. He says that he gets nerdy about his footwear and their performance benefits. He’s aware of those pairs’ construction and he likes them because they automatically keep him on his toes a little bit more. 

Beal, in addition to showing off his new personal logo, also is making it official that he’s re-upped with Jordan Brand for a multiyear contract extension.

“It’s an elite group,” Beal says about the JB family. “It’s invite only, that’s what’s so unique about it. And then to understand his story and how he’s taken the Brand from where he was as a player to where he is now. It’s just crazy to think that he wanted me to be a part of his Brand. That speaks volumes. Like I said before, he was who I watched growing up, watching his footwork, watching his killer instinct, watching how he dominated the game and how he worked. And he didn’t fear anything because he trusted his work. That was one of his greatest quotes. Now that I can be a part of a Brand, like, I grew up wearing his shoes.”

He grew up with them and he’s glowing up with them now. The plan is for Beal’s expression to extend to the Air Jordan 37, when his logo will touch the hardwood of NBA arenas. In all of his successes and all of his messages to the public, that specific moment won’t be lost on him. 

“It’s what every player dreams of and every player wants and every player should have, in a way,” he says about being able visually inform people. “It’s just dope. It’s kind of surreal in a way. But I’m definitely excited about it, now it’s kind of finally happening and coming into fruition. It won’t hit me until I actually see it. I’ve seen it actually a few times, like on some clothing pieces and things like that and it hits me every now and then too.”

The moment’s weight will continue to increase because this is the realization of a whole lot of years, of his love for hoops, art and fashion melding together. In all of his trips around the sun, with the surging water of his jumpshot causing downpours from St. Louis to Gainesville to Washington DC, and with the calm reliability of his sketchbook, there’s always been one constant—the sneakers. 

“My mom wouldn’t let us wear anything but Js or Nikes,” the 28 year old says. “That’s our household rule. So I haven’t owned another pair of sneakers, another brand besides Nike and Jordan. My mom has a Nike tattoo logo on her ankles. And that was the actual first tattoo she got. She got it when I got my first tattoo. I probably had some XIs on at the time.”

That incredible story about Mrs. Beal is just another part of Bradley’s story, a story that’s not just about basketball. 

The post Bradley Beal Talks About His New Personal Logo and Staying with Jordan Brand appeared first on SLAM.

As reported by ESPN, it’s the first so-called NIL deal for the sophomore superstar. There was radio silence around Bueckers after she filed a trademark application for her nickname, “Paige Buckets,” and signed with Wasserman Media Group and noted WNBA agent Linsay Kagawa Colas to represent her in all NIL negotiations.

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StockX intends on marketing Bueckers as “the centerpiece” of StockX’s foray into women’s sports and basketball per ESPN. It’s a deal that reportedly includes marketing exclusive products Bueckers will help design. She will also have unlimited access to apparel and sneakers to wear off-court.

“My partnership with StockX is about equity and authenticity,” Bueckers told ESPN. “It’s about (a) product I love and about shining a light on all the creatives that drive culture. I’m here to celebrate them and, together with StockX, invest in making sure women and women athletes are prioritized, elevated, and recognized for their style and their leadership.”

According to the company, in 2019, sales of women’s exclusive sneakers “outpaced the overall market” by 80%.” With Bueckers as the face of their company, StockX hopes to fill in and dominate that exclusive sneaker market.

Another stipulation of the deal will include StockX prioritizing their investment in woman athletes. According to reports, StockX will gather and provide extensive data and insights to validate the notion that female athletes can generate interest and impact sales for global partners. The brand will also be working with Bueckers on community-driven initiatives she’s passionate about such as highlighting Black women and BIPOC creatives in all that she does.

According to Opendorse, who struck a deal with UConn’s athletic department to help student-athletes navigate the new NIL landscape, Bueckers was worth an estimated $382,000 per year during last spring’s NCAA tournament. Bueckers has a massive following on social media, boasting over a million followers combined on Instagram and Tik Tok.

Buecker’s deal with StockX was announced simultaneously with her teammate and best friend, Azzi Fudd. The freshman guard revealed on Instagram that she is an ambassador and equity partner with sports drink company BioSteel.

Fudd has been busy on the NIL front, joining Chipotle as an ambassador for their ‘Real Food for Real Athletes’ platform and appearing on a Tik Tok commercial with Allen Iverson and Ty Lue.

Buecker and Fudd will make their regular-season debut Sunday against Arkansas.

The post Paige Bueckers Signs Exclusive Deal with StockX appeared first on SLAM.

“November 2019, we met up with [Stephen Curry] near Stanford at a restaurant,” Luedecke tells SLAM. “And I remember we had the ‘Flow Like Water’ colorway at that point.”

His colleague, Steve Segears, Senior Merchant, Global Merchandising at Curry Brand, is smiling along with the beginning of Luedecke’s story. 

“Steve did a phenomenal job of just storytelling and digging into all the materials and colors, opportunities along the way,” Luedecke continues. “And [Stephen] puts on the shoes and the moment he has them on his feet, you just see, like, this smile on his face, he’s just smiling, and he goes into the corner, he bounces up and down, he does a couple of things. We’re in a restaurant, in the backroom of a restaurant, so there’s no way for him to take them out on the court, but you can see, he’s like, ‘That’s the shit right here.’”

And then both Luedecke and Segears laugh. That was the moment that they knew years of hard work were going to pay off. 

The two-time MVP confirmed the story a few days later. 

“No doubt,” Curry begins. “That moment was special because it allowed me to kind of see the future and where we could go with product and just that experience for anybody that wears it. For me, like you know, I always get excited for that moment when you try something new but this one was something that kind of took it over the top in terms of the feel, the comfort, obsoleting rubber, and just the whole story behind Flow. From there the excitement around what we were building was kind of cemented. Now that it’s actually on shelves and on fan’s feet all across the world, it means a lot to know that that’s where it all started.”

“I remember that meeting we had with him at Stanford,” Segears adds. “At the time, Steph still had the hand injury, so he had a big cast on his hand, and I remember we actually had to get someone to put his shoe on for him, tie it up. I remember that smile that was on his face. I think on one foot he had, I think, the Curry 7. He puts the prototype of the Curry 8 on. He just gets up, you can just see this smile, almost like this big grin, as if he just hit the game-winning three pointer just coming across. And I will tell you even though he [had] the actual cast on, it was hard getting that shoe off his foot. I think he would’ve went out wearing those shoes that day if we would’ve let him.”

“He kept the shoes,” Luedecke jumps in. “I think that’s one of the first leaks when you were on the Warriors Instagram, some of those leaks were from that specific product because that’s the one he actually was like, ‘Ahhh, I’m taking these.’”

What made that moment so special for Curry was the introduction of Flow. It’s a proprietary technological leap forward that allows for a completely rubberless outsole made of foam. It doesn’t slide, which means it doesn’t squeak. Squeaking and sliding costs time on the court that could result in open looks or in blown defensive assessments. Rubber has been a mainstay of basketball sneakers for a century and it continuously squeaks, echoing throughout every gym and park where there’s a hoop. Flow is the silent antidote.

That was the night that Curry got to finally experience a near-finished version of the all-new system.

Luedecke explains that the idea of Flow first began in 2017. A group of chemists and engineers were just talking one day, trying to imagine something big, “pie in the sky” ideas, as Luedecke puts it. Their discussion led to UA’s signature cushioning platform, HOVR, a development that marked another big moment in their design history. That foam compound was wrapped in what UA called an Energy Web. The Energy Web was a mesh fabric made to protect the foam. When the elements interacted, responsiveness and energy return was engaged. 

Those brainstorming sessions to improve on HOVR continued through 2018 until a note came through from UA’s counterparts in Shanghai. A small shipment of tiny foam fragments showed what could be possible. More work followed until, eventually, Luedecke was able to use the new foam on some prototype running sneakers but didn’t have any specific high-level expectations.  

His counterpart, Fred Dojan, put the protos on one morning at their office. He started running around the in-office basketball court. By the time that Luedecke clocked in to work, Dojan was adamant that he try the product as well. And Luedecke was shocked to find out how well they gripped the hardwood and how light they were. 

Then their lives started moving in fast motion. They knew they wanted to have Stephen be the main driver of this new vehicle. Four prototypes with four different uppers were created. But the foam, the material that would become Flow, stayed consistent. 

Those protos were taken out to Cali to show number 30. After he learned about the biometric details and got to run around in them a little bit, he shared his thoughts. 

“He’s like, ‘Alright, well, I want the 8—that needs to be the 8, that needs to be the next shoe,’” Luedecke remembers.

The VP then makes a sound effect of an explosion. 

Segears adds that the Flow tech was supposed to drop in 2022. 

Monthly meetings with the three-time champ happened for more than a year. He had long been asking about how to make his sneakers better, from an innovation standpoint. He would ask questions throughout all their meetings, continually pushing for the most contemporary platforms and materials. 

“He’s really into technology in his personal life, as well,” Segears says of Curry. “When it comes to innovation, we look at him as the guy that we want to put at the forefront of innovation. When it’s something that makes him better and he can feel it, like Flow does, we want to make sure that we’re getting all those insights. He was very hands-on throughout the process. There were a lot of late-night phone calls. Just him checking in. Like, ‘How are we doing on the process? Are we going to get this for the 8?’ And he was adamant. He was like, ‘I’m not putting anything else on my foot unless it’s that Flow technology.’”

“The way the product is built is the opposite from other basketball shoes and that’s coming from somebody who’s built a lot of basketball shoes,” Luedecke says. “Usually you try to get to stability first and then kind of whittle away a little bit to get to where it’s flexible enough to feel it on the foot. This is the opposite. We started with flexible as a point of departure. When you glue foam and rubber together, by definition, it’s like a plywood. It creates a stiff surface or something that doesn’t want to flex very well. I would say in every other basketball shoe, you’re  fighting that. There’s somewhere to flex a little better or somewhere to take things out. Then you’re wondering whether it’s still going to be stable enough. That process was super interesting, even on our side. ‘I have to take every preconceived notion, everything I know about how to build a basketball shoe…’ That includes our engineers. You’ve got to think that through all the way to the factory. Even the factory guys were like, ‘That’s not how we build a shoe.’ We don’t want to mess with the flex, we don’t want to mess how soft it is, we don’t want to mess with how comfortable it feels. This wants to bend, this wants to work with your foot. That was a really, really fun exercise to go through.”

The all-foam outsole needed to complimented by an upper that was just as powerful, but not something that would overshadow the new tech. They went with a knit that features synthetic overlays where the foot is vulnerable. Luedecke brings up the bi-directional internal fit structure that was included in the 8. 

“There’s two directions of support that are independent of each other. They’re not laminated. Depending on if you stop, or if you cut, there are different elements that come into tension,” he says. 

The external heel counter and the internal heel bootie finish off the 8’s tech specs. But the silhouette is really all about Flow. 

“It’s something,” Curry said after the launch of Flow, “you ain’t never seen before.”

The post The Curry 8 is Changing Basketball Footwear Forever appeared first on SLAM.

Ib Hamad is coming to us live from Dreamville, teeming with positivity. The President of Dreamville has been living in the dream since the very beginning. He’s seen six different number one albums, some Grammy love and a signature sneaker. And he’s smiling about that sneaker, the PUMA RS-Dreamer. 

“One thing with Cole, anybody that knows him, he thinks so far ahead,” Hamad tells SLAM. “I remember years ago when he was like, ‘Man, I’m gonna have my own basketball sneaker.’ And I used to be like, ‘That sounds crazy.’ But I never doubted it because I know that his will—he’s the ultimate dreamer. Out of anyone I’ve ever known, I’ve never seen anyone that can really set his mind to things and get it done, even when it seems ridiculous. From when we went to college and he’s like, ‘I’m gonna get signed.’ And people was like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ The idea was flown around for him for so long that by the time it happened and you see that logo and you hold the sneaker  and you’re looking, like, ‘Damn, this guy really set his mind to it.’ It was more the feeling of— obviously the sneaker’s incredible, it’s a beautiful sneaker—but it’s the feeling of the journey.”

“When we started our work with both Cole and Ib on the RS-Dreamer, we knew that in order for the franchise to be a success, they were going to be intimate partners in every step of the creative process,” Adam Petrick, Global Director of Brand and Marketing at PUMA, tells SLAM. “Their creative vision, connection to culture, and authentic attitudes gave this shoe and launch an unrivaled approach. We wanted to ensure that Cole’s vision and dream was brought to life and we feel pretty confident that it was.”

The RS-Dreamer is packed with all of PUMA’s best tech, including RS foam in the ProFoam midsole and a knitted upper with suede accents. 

It originally dropped during the summer, but it’s back by popular demand in even greater quantities. 

“We are really excited that we can bring the RS-Dreamer back to our consumers and fans after such a successful initial launch,” Petrick says. “This time last year at All-Star Weekend Cole wore the RS-Dreamer for the very first time and so we thought it was a nice moment to bring the model back.”

“When it first came out I don’t think we knew what to expect and it just sold out it in minutes, it went crazy,” Hamad adds. “And people wanted it bad. You want people to have it, you want people to play basketball, you want people to wear it out when they go out with their friends and to rob them of that experience because it sold out so quick didn’t feel right.”

The launch colorway returns with the DREAMER logo on the heel. It’s been the motto from the very jump. And though Cole and Hamad didn’t know it at the time, the word fits in perfectly with them. “Dream” originates from Middle English in the 13th century. Its first meaning can be traced back to “music.”

With a big laugh, Hamad says that he isn’t aware of the etymology of “dream.”

“But I’ll tell you what a ‘dreamer’ means to me because I think everybody’s going to interpret it differently and look at it differently,” he continues. “For me, it’s just someone that doesn’t allow things or people or energies to get in the way of what they want to do or what they want to accomplish, whether small or big. I’ve always had the utmost respect for people that just kinda could put they head down and be like I don’t care what you say, I don’t care what he says or she says, what they believe. I don’t care if it seem ridiculous. I’m gonna get it done. That’s sort of what a dreamer is.”

So live from the state of/in/at Dreams, a pawn became a king with just a dollar and something else…

—

PUMA’s not done yet, though. Check out this chance to win a ride on the PJ to link up with Melo Ball and Chris Brickley.

The post Living Inside J. Cole’s Dream: A Behind-The-Scenes Look at the PUMA RS-Dreamer appeared first on SLAM.

The Jordan “Why Not?” Zer0.4 starts off with a quintet of flavors that, as Gibson said, have deep connections to the former MVP. There’s the “Upbringing,” an asymmetrical mashup of his childhood in LA.

Then there’s the black and gold “Family” option. Self-explanatory. The blue-based “Trust & Loyalty” joints are a tonal mockup that plays into Russ’ devotion to his loved ones. And then there’s the “FACETASM” collab, a project that was born during Westbrook’s 2019 trip to Tokyo. 

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Hiromichi Ochiai, the founder of Japanese-based design company, linked up with Russ and formed an immediate connection. Then the work started. 

“Super involved,” Gibson says of Westbrook. “He’s a creative himself. He defines himself as a creative on-court, off-court. I wasn’t sure whether to show him sketches or detail drawings or samples. He sort of works across all of that. The really cool thing about Russ is once he sees something, he knows. Very quickly. Very much knows what he likes, knows how he wants things and really brings this personal point of view maybe don’t do. Even though he’s guarded, he does want to tell personal stories and narratives, which I think is really cool and key for the product.”

“Russ always brings a ton of different references and elements every season,” Mackenzie Sam, the lead designer of Westbrook’s apparel collection, adds. “It all goes back to him and his personal connection to everything. It’s taking subtle hits and figuring out ways to maybe make them more overt.”

Gibson and Sam worked with Ochiai and Westbrook to build a world of design connected through footwear and clothing. The sneakers relate to the pieces and the pieces relate to the sneakers. Both Gibson’s and Sam’s teams work with the namesake at the same time, which has led to a bridge between the two sides. Moving forward, motifs from a PE will be subtly found on a jacket. Or a logo originally seen on the back of a shirt will be exported to a new colorway. 

Sam references OG Jordan gear, of course, but he also got his inspiration for this collection from an unexpected source. 

“The collection started with a mashup and a lot of different elements from a lot of areas, whether it be from classic Jordan, a lot of vintage military,” he tells SLAM. “A lot of these elements were pulled and then mashed together to create this collection. It’s always about breaking that expectation. I reference everything. Prior to being in Portland, I lived in New York. So, honestly, a new inspiration reference for me is just getting outside and getting to the outdoors.”

But everything that Westbrook does is rooted in performance. So Gibson techs out the “Why Not?” Zer0.4. 

There’s double-stacked Zoom in the forefoot and it’s got a decoupled outsole because the Air Jordan 28, a favorite of Westbrook’s, also had a decoupled outsole. There’s a TPU plate underfoot and a two-stage traction pattern. A series of thinner and thicker blades, with about 0.25 millimeter of difference in height, make up the outsole. 

“You have this top layer that’s touching the ground and as soon as you put a lateral force, there’s a little bit of deflection and that’s when the secondary ones grip in,” Gibson says about the outsole.

The upper makes use of aggressive lines and layered pieces as a reflection of how unique Westbrook is as a person and as a player. Gibson and his team then shed weight on the 4 by removing the midfoot strap that was featured on the 3. But Gibson emphasizes the 4’s heel lockdown. 

“The importance of locking the heel came from working with some NFL players actually,” he says. “Worked with Odell [Beckham Jr], where his trainer really wanted his heel to be locked down. And thinking about Russ as a similar sort of player, similar energy—Russ is a lot bigger than Odell—but the dynamic moves that they make on the floor, we felt that it was a really interesting match.”

Gibson is clear in saying that Odell didn’t work directly on the 4, just that his influence on it sparked a way to keep Westbrook safe when he’s dunking in DC this season. 

“Russ really likes to see options, iterations of things,” Gibson says. “We had a couple of things in our minds. The lockdown and the cushioning started, the traction came a little bit later, some of these details on the upper came a little bit later. But we just built all these concepts through sketch. I even made a couple of samples that were terrible but just to illustrate a concept. And we would talk about them all and then Russ would talk about the things that he liked about the different things. Then we started to brings those things together. 

“We would send him an email with images, we’d get on the phone, video chat—this all happened pre-COVID,” he continues. “And then we’d meet with him in-person, which is the most valuable because then you really get down to what he likes and what he doesn’t like. He would just take a shoe off the table and just go, ‘I don’t want to see that again.’ Super honest.”

The team eventually landed on the “Why Not?” Zer0.4, which will be part of the former MVP’s new journey. Westbrook is focused on using it as a platform to showcase the talents of storytellers and artists from within the Black community. That’s what’s most important to him. 

The post Inside the Design of the Jordan ‘Why Not?’ Zer0.4 appeared first on SLAM.

Note: Check back frequently for updates and additions to this list.

SLAM’s Holiday 2020 Collection

Browse our holiday apparel, which includes Gameday and Varsity shorts, Empire and Script hoodies, and sweats. We also have dozens of tees, hoodies, sweats, and jackets on sale for a limited time.

NBA Store

The NBA’s official online store has some steep sitewide discounts on the dates designated below. Also, there’s free shipping for select items.

• Thru Dec. 31: Click here for 15% off sitewide with code NBASLAM15.

Stadium Goods

Peep all of the sale items on Stadium Goods by clicking here. The Nike Dunk High SP “Michigan” sneakers are discounted for a limited time.

Nike

Also, get up to 40% off on select products at Nike.com by clicking here to browse the sale items. The Nike Air Max 270 React is one of the sneakers on sale. This is valid through Dec. 19.

Goat

Check out one of the world’s biggest style platforms. Here are all of the winter sale items available for a limited time. Also, they got the Air Jordan 11 Retro ‘Jubilee / 25th Anniversary’ sneaker available.

The post SLAM’s Holiday Shopping Guide appeared first on SLAM.

Check out our top picks below and enjoy the savings on premium gear for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Note: Check back frequently for updates and additions to this list.

SLAM’s Holiday 2020 Collection

We got our own Black Friday items for sale. Also, browse our holiday apparel, which includes Gameday and Varsity shorts, hoodies, and sweats. We also have dozens of tees, hoodies, sweats, and jackets on sale for a limited time.

NBA Store

The NBA’s official online store has some steep sitewide discounts on the dates designated below.

• Thru Dec. 31: Click here for 15% off sitewide with code NBASLAM15

Reebok

Reebok has several sitewide discounts through Dec. 2. See below for the complete rundown with links. Also, check out these NBA City Edition jerseys.

• Nov. 30 – Dec. 2: 50% Off Sitewide + Extra 10% Off By Clicking Here!

Stadium Goods

Click here for 15% off on Black Friday. Also, peep all of the sale items on Stadium Goods by clicking here. 

Nike

Nike’s got a Cyber Flash Sale. Click here for an extra 25% off new sale styles with code CYBER25. This is valid thru Dec. 1.

Also, get up to 40% off on select products at Nike.com by clicking here to browse the sale items. This is valid through Nov. 30.

Goat

Check out one of the world’s biggest style platforms. Visit Goat.com/blackfriday for all of the specials on sneakers and apparel. Also, here are all of the winter sale items available for a limited time.

The post SLAM’s Top Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals appeared first on SLAM.

An innate feel has been guiding Kyrie Irving in his professional career, both on the 94×50 and within the context of his signature sneaker line. The natural creativity he expresses in both areas was forged in the fire a long time. He would go from layup drills to studying what made MJ’s sneakers and Penny’s marketing campaigns so different. And all those hours and hours built skill and a one-of-a-kind instinct, a reactionary ability that can’t be duplicated. The connection between the two spaces now drive each other. His game informs his sneaker in the same way that his sneaker supports his game.

Time’s skipping along something crazy. Irving got drafted nine years ago and he’s now seven silhouettes deep.

The first six have been historically noteworthy. Basketball-informed real estate and construction have been mixed with imaginative colorways in a way that really hadn’t been seen before. Kyrie’s line isn’t about matching. He’s proven over and over that it’s about taking risks, seeing how colors compliment each other and how they play off each other. It was the line that served as a training ground for makeups that wouldn’t have been able to exist in the eras before him. Colors that the general public and execs at the League office would’ve laughed at in the past are now accepted widely.

With everything he’s already done behind him–the chip, the multiple All-Stars, the six sneakers–Kyrie had a clear vision for the 7.

“In the 7, start this whole new journey of being this high-performance basketball, taking on what Kobe’s identified with his line, I want to have some of that in my line as well,” Ben Nethongkome, lead designer of the 7, said of Irving’s mindset.

Performance. Performance. Performance.

“When Eric Avar designed the Kobes, I don’t think they were thinking about it’s got to look cool off-court,” Nethongkome said. “That’s something we talked about internally. If it performs really well on the court, that’s the move that we’ve got to really pinpoint. If it doesn’t perform then we let the athlete down. We always prioritize the performance feature, the aspect of being a banger on-court.”

The 7 is dedicated to quickness and providing Irving with a vehicle for speed. Nethongkome and his team started the 7 by going back to the 6. They went through the outsole to begin cutting weight. Then they cut the strap that defined the 6, replacing it with forefoot TPU wings on either side of the silhouette. The 6’s leather got replaced by composite mesh with a reinforced layer below. Nethongkome and his team were able to shave 2.5 ounces from the 6 to the 7 when all was said and done.

But that forefoot Air Zoom Turbo unit that’s made his line so comfortable is back in the 7.

“The Zoom Turbo unit that we had before, that was something specifically that Kyrie wanted us to keep,” Nethongkome said.

The rest of the 7 will fall in line as the season gets going again. They’ve got some big plans to link up with Kevin Durant and Sue Bird.

“There’s for sure a conversation being had with our team and the KD team,” Nethongkome said. “We definitely are working on something with Sue Bird and Kyrie. And he’s definitely going to be rocking some of that for sure.” 

“Talking about creativity,” Irving said, “you’re constantly exploring new ways of doing things. I’m always thinking about how we can grow existing silhouettes or try something completely new.”

The post Inside the Design of the Nike Kyrie 7 appeared first on SLAM.

“Adam and I were high school basketball players,” he says. “Our high school team won Southern California Championship. We played in college at SC. Our dreams growing up was literally to be in SLAM.”

The brothers didn’t make it to SLAM as ballplayers. They made it as businessmen. They used all the money they had to buy an ad in SLAM to launch APL, their sneaker company. Athletic Propulsion Labs was meant to be the pinnacle of basketball performance footwear. 

That was the only paid advertisement they did. And it worked. 

“You have these NBA players and their agents reaching out to us,” Ryan continues. “We ended up getting invited to the NBA Finals, when the Lakers were playing the Celtics, 2010. We ran into David Stern and Adam Silver. We were talking to them about APL and the shoes and they said, ‘If you  guys want any NBA players to wear it, you have to come meet with the NBA prior to August 1 of the upcoming season to show them the product and make sure you get approvals.’”

The APL Concept 1 was a performance monster, highlighted by the Goldston’s proprietary Load ’N Launch technology. Load ’N Launch is a forefoot spring pad. The “Load” part happens when a player jumps, compressing the springs. Then the “Launch” comes in the form of a release at the moment of liftoff. The kicks, simply speaking, gave wearers stupid bunnies. 

The brothers’ initial idea for APL was to be on the “highest end of the performance spectrum,” according to Ryan. APL ended up flying too high for the League. 

“We’re waiting, waiting,” Ryan says. “It passes August. It passes September. We finally hear back from them. October 19, 2010. The NBA banned the shoes because they said it ‘provides the wearer with an undue competitive advantage.’ That was their exact wording. The greatest wording we could’ve ever hoped for.” 

A decade to the day later, he’s going back through the story with pure joy. He and Adam would spend the next four years consistently selling out of their basketball silhouettes.

And now the brothers are celebrating their decennial anniversary with the release of two new basketball sneakers, the APL SUPERFUTURE and the APL Concept X. 

“It’s a 26-piece upper with a new type of Exolock material that we created,” Adam says with the Concept X in his hand. “It’s super stretch but it also locks your foot down with this material. The cool thing about the Concept X is we took the original technology that was banned by the  NBA. Now it’s much bigger and performs insane as a full carbon plate that runs from the heel to the forefoot. 

“Cars are a huge inspiration for us,” he continues. “Cars have gotten faster but the main thing that they’ve done is they’ve gotten lighter. We tried to use inspiration from the way that they invent vacuum-wrapped cars and the fastest cars and the most exciting cars are the ones where there is real motion in it but it looks like it’s shrink-wrapped. That’s what we tried to do with these shoes.

“This is the SUPERFUTURE,” he says with their newest model in front of the Zoom camera. “It’s a laceless basketball shoe. This has the original Load ’N Launch technology that was banned by the NBA. We really wanted to try to push the limit, specifically with these shoes, in terms of what’s possible with design and then also innovation.”

The brothers have been pushing everything about APL for the last ten years, continually referencing “world building.” What started as a basketball sneaker company has transformed into an international brand where everything from visual aesthetics to written world is carefully calculated. The brothers take a trip down memory lane and share stories about being in Monaco for the 2016 Grand Prix and in Hong Kong for the start of their deal with the Lane Crawford department store franchise. Those are two moments that stand out to them along the journey and that helped them to refocus the vision they first started out with. 

“A lot of times you’re looking at stuff and you’re thinking about it from a financial standpoint,” Ryan says. “But that’s not truly the stuff that brings you the happiness. It’s not the thing that characterizes success for you. It’s the happiness and success of getting to do what you love, the process that goes into it. That was a fundamental shift in thinking that came from the love of creating.”

They both call out specific memories from the time they spent in Monaco and in Hong Kong. Adam says it was “surreal” to see 400 people wear their kicks after they inked a partnership with Renault to be the Formula One Team’s official footwear provider for the Grand Prix. And reminiscing on the pop-up shop and three-on-three basketball game that Lane Crawford hosted for them in Hong Kong has them both giddy. 

SLAM asked the Goldstons about what music inspires them at the top of this interview. Nipsey Hussle, Adam said without hesitation. He remembers hearing “Hussle in the House” back in 2009 and immediately identifying with the late great. 

“He talked about how he took the stairs, not the elevator,” Adam says. “That’s been the whole thing for us. We felt like we took the stairs. We had a huge advantage when we got banned by the NBA but we did it our way. We’re in year ten now. We’ve been grinding for a very long time. We have a lot of success now. But it definitely didn’t happen overnight, even though we had that overnight moment. I’ve always related to the mentality that [Nipsey] has in terms of building.

“I know it sounds fucking cliche, and again, not to go back to Nipsey Hussle but Nipsey literally said ‘If you don’t enjoy the journey then you’re just a hardworking failure,’” Adam says. “If you’re looking for one specific thing at the end of the road, and you get there, you’re not going to be happy. What we try to do as a company, what inspires us, we want to be excited about the things we’re doing day in and day out.”

They say that they have big plans waiting in the wings for 2021. Those’ll come to life in due time. But on this day, the ten year anniversary of getting banned by the NBA, with their newest basketball sneakers dropping, the APL SUPERFUTURE and the APL Concept X, it’s a full-circle moment that Ryan and Adam will be talking about another ten years from now. 

The post APL Founders Ryan and Adam Goldston Celebrate Ten Years of Success appeared first on SLAM.

“How could you paint that picture?” Petrie asks. “That evolution of LeBron and really of sustained greatness. And I don’t know what that looks like. Getting a window into that… Maybe it’s just a blank page and you just have a little sliver. And when you look into that sliver you see basketball heaven’s in there.”

Petrie knows all about James’ reign at the top. He was given the reins to the LeBron line with the 7. And he brought the rain, thunder and the lightning with that model. He was the brain behind the first-ever Nike Basketball silhouette with a 360-degree Air Max unit. It was a sneaker that completely redefined the King’s line-up to that point and one that still remains an anchor of his personal Nike history. The 360-degree Air unit was complimented by Flywire cables in the upper and a patent leather toe rand similar to the Air Jordan XI. The seven colorways that came out have become legendary. Ballplayers still wear them on-court to this day, including The King. That was 2009, back when James had only one MVP award. A lot’s changed since then, but the relationship between Petrie and James has remained. One constant of that relationship is LeBron’s desire to play with an Air Max unit in his signature sneakers.

Petrie reintroduced the all-encompassing cushioning with the LeBron 15 in 2017. The 16 and 17 also got the treatment, with some updates. Max Air returns in the 18 and it features one huge innovation: the cushioning is still there, but the heel is composed just a little differently.

“With the 17, we had the two little pods, the Zoom in the forefoot,” Petrie says. “They were very reactive, very pinpoint, and allowed us to be really flexible and carve away a lot of stuff there, a lot of midsole foam, for a very unique and kind of poppy feel for LeBron with those really thick Zoom bags. But what we noticed as we were working through that project was that in the heel bag, when you look through an Airbag and you see that color there, that’s actually foam that’s filling up the inside of the Airbag. It’s a little bit weird to think about. It’s Air but there’s some foam in the middle. Some of our full-length Zoom bags would fit laid right into that cavity. So instead of filling it with foam, you fill it with Zoom. Which is like, ‘Oh my God, that could be unbelievable.’

“So it just came from really spending time on the 17 and being in Asia and being around innovation and having all those Air units around us and working with engineering and development thinking, ‘Oh, we could do this. This system could work.’ Basically what it did was allow us to integrate in a ton more Zoom than was on the 17 in a shoe that’s lighter than the 17. So now you’ve improved transition, you’ve replaced foam, which is a resilient material, with our most responsive material, which is that Zoom. It just gives you back so much more energy. The whole feel of the shoe—even though you’re using the same heel bag as the 17—the entire feel of the shoe is different than it was on the 17 because of that change.”

Petrie mentions that the reason the tooling has been similar on the 15, 16, 17 and 18 is because of how reliable it is and because of how much time it takes to develop. He says that they don’t want to get rid of it just to get rid of it. So they iterate and continue to find ways to improve.

Plus, peep this: between the first season that Petrie brought the Air Max unit out and now, Bron’s averaging 27 points, 9 assists and 8 rebounds on 52 percent shooting. Those might look like standard LeBron stats. But he’s upped all of those numbers across the board compared to his first 14 seasons in the League, and he had about 50,000 minutes on his legs by the time he laced up the 15. That’s Sinatra at the opera.

That cushioning is helping him play better, straight up. Can’t knock the hustle.

“LeBron’s the main driver,” Petrie says. “He gives you those north stars that you go and get, that day-to-day inspiration, after he provides, ‘Oh man, I need to be all about Max Air.’ And you’re like, ‘Alright, shit, we’ve gotta find some kind of new thing of Max Air that works for him. Now we’ve gotta work with the entire Nike armada, NXT, everybody, to try to figure this out for him.’”

Petrie has been the face of the LeBron line on the Nike side for over a decade now. But he doesn’t do any of this alone. The “armada” he brings up comes in the form of designers, engineers and marketing experts. Like Hov said, “Recruited lieutenants with ludicrous dreams of getting cream.”

“We’ve got a lot of creative people,” he says. “Nike, in general, but [with] Basketball you’ve got Ben [Nethongkome] working on Kyrie stuff and he’s always doing something new and crazy and Ross [Klein] doing his thing. We’ve had so many greats come through. Your game gets elevated and we work as a group. So a lot of stuff floats around. Maybe you talked about it two years ago and somebody else picks it up, makes it better, runs with it.

“Our NXT and Advance teams and Air research and product research and Innovation are coming up with stuff all the time,” he continues. “So when you give them something to go after like that—LeBron loves Air Max, he wants to be in Air Max—how can we make something that’s lower to the ground? And that’s what can take some time. They go after it. They test it. They try it with six flex grooves, with 20 flex grooves. You know, everything. And we work together as you go through that process knowing that it’s way out. And when they start getting something that’s like, ‘OK, we can kinda make this work, we might be able to integrate this in, you know, Holiday ’25 or whatever.’ Then it’s like, ‘OK, now how can we start working a shoe around that?’”

Because the entire Nike Basketball team works at least 18 months out on products, some ideas can take up to three years to fully finish. The final touches on all of these projects are earned by many, many people, both in the States and abroad. Though Petrie, and eventually LeBron, get to approve the sneakers, they run through the hands of countless people who all have a role to play in the development stages.

Another part of the relationship between James and Petrie that hasn’t changed after all this time is the way they react to seeing progress made on a new model.

“I get happy like a kid,” Petrie says with a big laugh. “I’ll curse or something, like, ‘Ohhh shittt! That’s gonna be crazy!’ Or sometimes it’s just a wide grin. They’ll be telling me something and I just start smiling. I know we must be doing something right because I literally get like a little kid. And LeBron does the same thing, which is, like, really one of the most incredible rewards of the job is being able to put something in front of him and have him react like that and take pictures and be excited. It’s really cool.”

The knit that covers the upper of the newest LeBron sneaker elicited that kind of reaction. Petrie says it’s a combination of all the knits that have been seen on the 15, 16 and 17. The protection aspect from the 15, the high-tenacity yarns from the 16 and the TPU yarns that got heated on the 17 served as the foundation. They took what they learned from those three BattleKnit uppers and adapted it to make it sleeker and faster. Petrie says that it feels like armor-skin.

“Roberto and Jose Luis, they were two gentlemen that worked with us on [the knit],” he continues. “They’re with us all the time so they’re kind of thinking about the same things. And they come back with a bevy of stuff. ‘We could do this, we could do this, we could do this.’ And as Roberto and Jose Luis started laying these elements together, it was like, ‘Oh shit, OK, that’s the stack.’ We started to get a really strong, really thin [knit] and from the get-go, the thing I hung on was the way the TPU knit felt when you scratched your fingers on it. And the way it looked. It looked so intricate.”

The complexity of the yarns is extended into a Flywire cable system. The knit works with the Flywire to secure the whole ride, which goes back into the “skin” feel that Petrie mentioned. It wraps around the whole foot.

“We just basically took the best bits of every knit to form this ultimate version of BattleKnit for LeBron,” he says.

The 18’s split-construction is a callout to the mixture of speed and power the King still plays with, even after all this time. That kind of talk is only reserved for the bosses.

“That’s where lightning strikes and it cracks open Pandora’s box, but in a good way. It allows us to get a witness to these insane things that LeBron can pull off. The chasedown block and even these things that he’s doing off-court. This ain’t a quick lightning strike,” Petrie says about James’ career. “This is what he does. It’s just him. That’s another thing that makes it special. Sure, every now and then an athlete will put that combination together for a great game, maybe even a great season. But LeBron’s done it, really, for people’s lifetimes.”

Never change. This is James every day.

The post Inside the Design of the Nike LeBron 18 appeared first on SLAM.

With the release of his second signature sneaker during the summer of 2020, Donovan Mitchell has continued to utilize his unique platform to bring awareness to a plethora of worldwide issues. We spoke with the Utah Jazz star to discuss his approach to his line with adidas, the design process, what he plans to implement in future editions and much more.

KICKS: You have always used your kicks to bring attention to different social causes. Before the pandemic shut down the NBA, you dedicated custom colorways to raise awareness for autism, the earthquake in Puerto Rico, the Australian bush fires and much more. You even auctioned the sneakers and donated the money to relief efforts. Can you talk about where that philanthropic spirit originates from?

DONOVAN MITCHELL: I think the biggest thing is understanding my role as an NBA athlete. On top of that, having my own shoe, it allows me to do things in a way that I would like. My biggest thing that I love doing the most is giving back to those in need—so being able to bring awareness, to spread awareness, to give back, those are things that I really pride myself on. So, for me, it was just like, OK, how can I go about doing it with my shoe? Because everybody looks down at these dudes on the court [to see] what shoes they are wearing. Spreading awareness—whether it’s gun violence, praying for Australia [due to] the fires, earthquakes in Puerto Rico—I just feel like we as athletes are a form of leaders throughout the country as well. I think any type of messaging is something that I will continue to spread using the voice and platform that I have. I think it also brings a lot of recognition and awareness to what’s needed.  

KICKS: On opening night of the restart in Orlando, you honored Breonna Taylor and others who have lost their lives at the hands of police by wearing a special colorway that had phrases like “Say Their Names” and “Ready For Change.” Tell us a little bit about the process of approaching adidas with this idea.

DM: Having gone to school in Kentucky, in Louisville, it hits close to home. For me, it was just like, OK, how do I find a way to honor her? We’re down here playing but the biggest thing is how we continue to keep her name and everybody’s names on the forefront of people’s minds. What better way to do it than on opening night, in the first game, with the shoes? I feel like they were a big hit. I loved them. I’m blessed that adidas was able to allow me to go express myself and have my back when I went out there with these shoes. Just continuing to find ways—there will be others for sure. But that was just something that was near and dear to my heart. I think there’s justice that needs to be brought that hasn’t come yet and myself and my colleagues who are also in the NBA are going to continue to speak on it until justice is served.

KICKS: You mentioned that there will be others. Do you have other issues in mind that you want to bring awareness to through your shoes?

DM: I think the biggest thing I want to do is I want to be able to create something where there are jobs or positions that can be filled in the company in my design process. Having kids from HBCUs, or having African-Americans, minorities, coming from different schools, to come and help me with my design process. There are a lot of talented African-American men and women out there who I feel can use this as an opportunity to propel themselves into that world. I think it’s something that for the 3s, the 4s and the 5s, that we can definitely work on and explore. It’s something that would be special.

KICKS: We know that you give away most of your on-court shoes after the games—whether at home or on the road. Can you tell us a little bit about that? What has motivated you to do that every night?

DM: I always wanted to be that kid. I always wanted to be the guy who got those. For me it was, How could I make a kid’s day? You never know what a kid may be going through. Seeing a kid wearing your jersey, it’s a different feeling. It’s an honor and a blessing to see that. To give them the same energy that they’re reciprocating to me, I think that’s something I really take pride in and it’s special to me.

KICKS: When you were a kid, was there ever a basketball player—or even a baseball player, since your dad has been with the New York Mets organization for decades—that handed you a pair of kicks or other memorabilia? How did that experience impact your approach to fans after you became a pro?

DM: Growing up around the Mets organization, I saw a lot of guys giving their stuff away. I don’t really have [an experience] myself that I could think of off the top of my head, but I think seeing guys do that and the look on kids’ faces and me always wanting to be that kid, I think that’s where a lot of it came from. Just being able to see it and the reaction, and [thinking], Man, I would love to do that now that I’m in a position to do that. I want to try to make sure that every kid that I possibly can [reach] has that feeling.

KICKS: In June, your SPIDACARES foundation gave away pairs of your signature sneakers to students at a charter high school in Bridgeport, CT. They each got two pairs as a graduation gift. How did that idea come about?

DM: My mom runs that foundation and we talked about it—How could we give shoes away to kids who worked hard and what better way to do it than with a graduation [gift]? Being able to say congratulations but also leave them with the message, like, Look, there’s a lot that can be done. There’s a lot to still be done, but congratulations on your hard work so far. To feel appreciated—that’s the biggest thing. You guys have done a great job. Your parents have done a great job raising you to get you to this point. But this is something to just be like, Look, there’s always a goal to reach, you never know who’s watching and you never know who’s going to be in your corner with you. I told them, I’m going to be there and be one of those people because I’ve seen all the hard work you’ve put in and it shouldn’t stop.

KICKS: Tell us about the D.O.N. 2s. What was your general vision heading into the design process? What were you looking for?

DM: We loved the look. We loved the layout. I think the biggest thing for me was just being more comfortable in my shoe. As the years go on and you get to shoe [number] two, three, four, and hopefully up to 12 or whatever, just understanding more about your foot—what my foot needs and how to maximize my shoe. Not just for myself but for other consumers as well. For me, I was not going to change the price point at all. I think for me the biggest thing was that I wanted everybody to be able to afford my shoe, but the difference is that we’re going to come out with more crazy color schemes. The tech is pretty much the same with the Bounce, but we just changed the design a little bit. Put the logo on the back. The partnership with Crayola. A bunch of different things to make it very exciting and I’m really excited for it to launch because I feel like it’s one of the best shoes and it’s very comfortable, obviously. I’m just very excited.

KICKS: Was there any particular storytelling you wanted to do with the designs of the 2s? Are there any particular parts of the shoes that have a deeper meaning or stories behind them?

DM: At the bottom of my shoe, I have the locations of where I went to school and up to where I am now. So, like, the longitude and the latitude of every place that I’ve been—Brewster [Academy], University of Louisville, now Utah. I think that [journey] really means a lot. My mom’s and sister’s birthdays are at the bottom of my shoe. Very subtle messages but I think ones that are very important to me and how I got to where I am today.

KICKS: Give us a timetable. How long ago did you start the process of thinking about the designs and features for the 2s?

DM: I started on the 2s right after the 1s [dropped]. The design process of the shoes goes much faster than I honestly anticipated. I feel like we [said], This is what we see on the 1s, and the biggest thing is, how can we improve the technology from the 1s and bring them to the 2s? And find ways to just become innovative. Who are we going to partner with? Obviously, Crayola is the big one. You have Spider-Man and Marvel, too. I really started not too long after the first one dropped. We were going through testing. It’s come a long way and I’m very blessed to be in this position. It’s a very fun process. You get as much out of it as you put into it. For me, it’s just trying to find ways to continue to put my time and effort into it because I know the people that are working behind the scenes are working day in and day out to help me. So, to give them the same effort that they give me is huge.

KICKS: Would you say it was easier or more difficult to go through the process for the 2s compared to the 1s? How different was the process this second time? On one hand, you were more familiar with the process going into the 2s. On the other hand, the challenge is making this one better than your last one.

DM: I think it was easier, honestly. The biggest thing was I was already used to it on my foot. We already had the mold. Just being able to give my input and know [more about] what my foot likes and doesn’t like. So I think it was easier to do the 2s because you already had a lot of the technology saved from the 1s to create a better and more improved shoe.

KICKS: Which D.O.N. Issue #2 colorway would you say is your favorite and why?

DM: I would probably say the “Camp” shoe, which is the most [colorful] one. For me, the biggest things are the messages on the inside. There were a lot of messages we got throughout the draft process, throughout my rookie year, of what I could and couldn’t do, and I put a lot of those wordings in there. And that’s what means the most to me just because of a lot of things people say I can’t do. For me, putting that in the shoes was another reminder of what people thought and how I’m here to prove everybody wrong.

KICKS: You’ve partnered with some major companies for your colorways. From Marvel all the way to Crayola, how wild has it been seeing major entities like those wanting to collaborate with your line?

DM: It’s a huge blessing. I never in a million years thought I’d be here but I am. And now the biggest thing is continuing my work on the floor to allow these things to continue to happen. None of this happens without the work on the floor and what I do during the games. So, for me, it’s like, How do I find a way to continue my brand in that way? It’s a huge honor and blessing to be able to work with these companies, but there’s more to do. That’s really where my head is at—continuing to find ways to build myself on the floor and then everything else will take care of itself.

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Franklyn Calle is a senior producer at SLAM. Follow him on Twitter @FrankieC7.

Photos by Garrett Ellwood/NBAE via Getty Images

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Don CC is the Godfather of the Air Jordan XI baseball cleat.

The “Concords” were on his feet when he and the New York Yankees won the 2009 World Series. And now any ballplayers who want a pair have to go through him, the Don.

“A lot of guys started asking about it but we kind of made it a rule,” Sabathia tells SLAM. “You gotta win a championship to get the XIs. It’s a rite of passage of baseball guys that [if] you win a championship, you get those.”

Other baseball players have worn Air Jordan XIs on-field. Even Sabathia’s teammate, Derek Jeter, once had a pair of XIs that looked like “Space Jams.” But the diamond version of the silhouette is now officially tied to 52.

Great men are not born great. They grow great. Sabathia’s long list of accomplishments make him a lock for the Baseball Hall of Fame. He’s won the Cy Young Award and the ALCS MVP, played in six All-Star Games, notched 251 career wins and, of course, that ’09 World Series victory.

The Bombers took home the chip during Sabathia’s first season in the Bronx, which was also the first season the new Yankee Stadium opened up. He was already well-established by the time he started playing in the Cathedral, an eight-year veteran with multiple All-Star appearances and a reputation for his lefty sliders, changeups, cutters and sinkers.

But he was cooking during that ’09 campaign. As one of the few baseball players with Jordan Brand at that time, his reps at the Jumpman expected him to make the All-Star Game. Even though he didn’t get the nod in that particular season, a box still showed up at his place.

“They sent me my first pair of ‘Concords’ [in] ’09 because they thought I was going to make the All-Star team,” CC remembers. “Dale Allen [Director of Sports Marketing at the Brand], at the time, he was like, Don’t wear them. I’m going to send you these. If you make the All-Star team, wear them. But if you don’t, don’t wear them.”

Don CC pauses right here and lets out a huge laugh. Nobody tells a Don what to do.

“Yeah, right! Like, you sent me these cleats, I’m wearing them. I was like, Yeah, for sure, I’m not going to wear them. He sent them and right away, my first start after the All-Star break was a big game against Boston. And I had them on, pitched great and the rest is history.”

Just like Michael Jordan before him, Sabathia played in the “Concords” even though he was told not to. And just like Jordan before him, Sabathia was winning. He was 19-8 on the mound in ’09 and the Yankees finished the regular season with a 103-59 record. Sabathia had his favorite sneaker converted into a cleat just for him.

Jordans were everything and everywhere in the ’80s and ’90s. Sabathia says that the XIs immediately stood out to him when he was in 10th grade, becoming his favorite pair right away. But he couldn’t afford them while he was growing up in Vallejo, CA. He was a huge fan of MJ and understood his impact on sneakers and sports and actually played baseball, football and basketball when he was a kid. Sabathia remembers finally being able to get the Air Jordan XIIs in 11th grade and playing in them, beating them up and holding on to them for as long as he could. That’s why as soon as he started playing in the XIs with the Yankees, they quickly became his number one option.

“I’m like, Yo, I need eight, nine pairs of these. This is my shoe forever,” he says. “And we went on to win the World Series, pitched in the playoffs all down the stretch with the ‘Concords.’ For me, it’s just about feel. After that stretch in ’09, wearing the ‘Concords,’ anytime I needed a big game or it’s a big start or I needed to get back rolling, I would always put on ‘Concords’ or some version of them. That was always my go-to shoe to get me back on track, make me feel good.”

His personal history with them, as well as their overall stature and appearance, were already easy money. Their on-field performance is what kept them in-rotation. The wraparound patent leather rand makes them extremely durable. It allows for the exclusion of a pitching toe, a medial side add-on aimed to protect the toe area.

“When you throw you drag your foot on the dirt, off the mound,” Sabathia explains. “When I have XIs, I never put that little extra because the patent leather can take it.”

The Brand sent more and more XIs to Don CC after the World Series. The next decade saw him get PEs shouting out his little league team from back home in Vallejo and his 200th career win, as well as more Yankee-themed flavors. The smile on his face when he talks about the memories and the cleats tell the entire story. He went from being the kid who couldn’t get them to the Don who made history in them.

“For me, it represents my championship, because these are the shoes that I had on down the stretch to help us win the World Series,” he says. “Obviously we won a championship in them, too. For me, it’s just about my legacy. Anybody that ever asks me about my cleats, it’s always the ‘Concords.’ At the time when I first wore them, it was a big deal because nobody was really wearing them. It just means everything to me to have these shoes and for them to be such a big part of my childhood and me wanting them so bad…and then to be able to win a championship in them? It’s just a surreal feeling.”

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Max Resetar is an Associate Editor at SLAM. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

Photos by Jon Lopez.

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Let’s take a trip and fly high above Yaoundé, the capital city of Cameroon. We’ll see over two million people living down there. We’ll hear French and various dialects being spoken, and we’ll see a palace, art museums, bustling marketplaces and the Reunification Monument. Then we’ll keep flying. We’ll head west of the city, for about 160 miles.

A peak will rise up off the horizon.

Mongo Ma Ndemi, which translates from Bakweri to the Mountain of Greatness, lines the shore overlooking the Gulf of Guinea. It’s an active volcano, towering over 4,000 meters tall. The climb up to the top passes through a tropical rainforest with showers of mist covering its canopy of evergreen trees and its bushes on the forest floor. Elephants, monkeys, hogs, chimpanzees and duikers make appearances throughout the ascent, while the Mount Cameroon speirops, a small bird species, skips from tree to tree.

But the density of the forest gives way to the scarcity of Mongo Ma Ndemi’s summit. On sunny days, the greenery transforms into an arid landscape, with only sunburned shrubs lining the walkway. The change in scenery, from canopy to bushes, is finally completed by the view.

All of Cameroon is now lost to the sky. Nature’s purest blue meets the nearly translucent light of the atmosphere. Clouds hover and glide below the peak and the wind sings while it rides across the mountain. There’s nothing up here. It’s just the world. It’s just possibility.

The volcano hasn’t erupted for about 20 years. The last time it did, Joel Embiid was a kid in Yaoundé. His story was just beginning. He had no intention of becoming an NBA player.

“My goal was actually to become the president,” the 26-year-old says. “I just wanted to change the world.”

He was dreaming, leaning on a source of inspiration that captivated him immediately.

“I’m a big Dragon Ball Z and all the franchises, GT and all that stuff, I’m a big fan,” Embiid says. He can’t remember when he got hooked, but he knows it was when he was young. “It gave me a different sense of the world. Growing up in Cameroon, in Africa, wasn’t always the easiest. So you just see different sides. I know it was a cartoon, but at the same time it just also felt real. You just get a different sense of everything. It kind of, in some ways, teaches you how to be a better person.”

He wanted to become president because of Goku.

“You see he’s saving the planet, he’s fighting against Freeza,” Embiid says, speaking about the hit anime series beloved by tons of NBA players. “Even going all the way back, the Red Army, even to the first Dragon Ball, the original one, he’s always fighting to save people and to make the world better. At the time, obviously, I didn’t think it had any correlation. But looking back now, what my goal was, it probably had something to do with it.”

Those early years of Embiid’s life are what shaped everything about him. And now they’ve also shaped his debut signature sneaker, the Under Armour Embiid One. Reggie Wilson, Senior Footwear Designer at UA and the lead on the Embiid One, has tapped into that past for the launch of the silhouette.

They’re starting things off with the “Origin” colorway. As a nod to Embiid’s favorite cartoon growing up, to Wilson’s love of Star Wars and to the format of episodic storytelling, the entire narrative of the Embiid One centers around sharing the Sixers star’s journey like a movie.

“I always say my life is a movie,” Embiid tells KICKS.

One of the characters in the movie is Mongo Ma Ndemi. Wilson and his team studied the mountain and transformed its influence into a part of the sneaker.

“I was researching people that go up this mountain,” Wilson says. “It could be dangerous but it’s this journey. When I was in the initial phase of doing research, I was looking at that mountain. I happened to go to Google Earth and I was looking at the topography and it just so happened that at the top of that mountain, the topography of it is the shape of Africa. So I was like, Wow, that’s kind of cool. And if you see the outsole, that’s partially why I put Africa in the heel, because the top of that mountain looked like Africa. And that’s where those radiating lines come from.”

Embiid hasn’t climbed the mountain, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t taken his own adventure. Though he’ll be leaving his footprints in the Embiid One moving forward, the steps he’s taken since 2011 have formed their own outline.

“That was one of the main things when I started working with Under Armour,” Embiid says. “My story is, I don’t mean to brag, but my story is fascinating. I still feel like people don’t really know my story. It’s been told a lot of times but people don’t know it, or they don’t pay attention. They just look at the Joel Embiid now. Like, Oh, he’s doing this, he’s doing that. He’s scoring this many points and this and that. But they don’t know how I started.”

So let him tell you about his origin story.

“I played soccer and then I played volleyball,” he begins. “As I got into it, I had a different sense in the way that I thought I was heading for the pros when it came to volleyball. And then in 2011, I had the opportunity to be part of Luc Mbah a Moute’s camp. I had just started playing ball. I thought I did OK and I never believed that I had any chance.

“And just like that, he offered me an opportunity to come to America, and then that’s when everything opened up. But still, even then, I still wasn’t confident. I just started playing basketball and it was hard. And I went to a school, Montverde Academy, which is known as, you know, they got the best, talented high school players. I think it helped me a lot, just develop, just figuring out what I want with my life. Especially because I was not supposed to be there. That year or a year later, I was supposed to go to France to play volleyball and probably start my professional career. Instead of that, I was in the US, trying to learn how to play basketball and the language, and just trying to get better.

“The first time I really thought I had a chance to get to the NBA, it didn’t start until when I was in college, a few games in. It was against Iowa State. I had a pretty good game and then after that game, coach Fred Hoiberg called me the best player in the nation. And right before that, I had a few other games, like, against New Mexico State, where I had a Dream Shake. It was starting to come together and people were starting to say it. Two thousand and eleven, and then in just three years, I get drafted, 2014. Everything happened so fast.”

The years in between 2014 and 2020 have seen him get named to three All-Star Games, make two All-NBA teams and two All-Defensive teams. He’s got career averages of 24 points and 11 rebounds a game, and he’s the driving force behind the Sixers’ championship hopes.

The accomplishments and the stats are definitely impressive. But the eye test is the only way to truly understand the full scope of his impact in the NBA. Embiid is 7-0, clocking in at 280 pounds. He doesn’t play anything like an old-school center, though. He’s got the honey-dipping stroke from downtown, the skill to take unlucky opposing bigs off the bounce, the strength to dominate from the post, the vision to be a playmaker, the tenacity to protect the rim and the ruthlessness to beat entire teams by himself. He’s a one-of-one, a whole new type of ballplayer who’s capable of doing nearly everything on the court.

The UA Embiid One was constructed with all of that in mind.

Before Wilson cooked up the narrative structure of the Embiid One, he and his team engineered a silhouette specifically designed for positionless basketball.

Its mid-cut height serves as the bridge between guards and bigs. Mesh covers the upper, addressing one of Embiid’s specific requests for breathability. A TPU support wing pops up on the lateral forefoot section. Its foundation is a combination of two UA technological staples: a HOVR unit sits in the heel on top of a Micro G midsole.

“We wanted to keep a relatively simple build,” Wilson says. “The first time I met Joel and went into his closet, one of the things I noticed was all the shoes in his closet were really simple. But they always had one iconic element. I used that as inspiration, and that’s why the TPU piece is the clear visual focal point and everything else is simple.”

Then there’s traction pattern that Wilson referenced. The heel’s directly shaped by the continent of Africa while the forefoot’s directly shaped by the continent of North America. And the right outsole is a mirror reflection of the left outsole.

“As I mentioned, the overarching story of the shoe is about reflecting on his journey,” Wilson says. “The outsole of the left shoe highlights this idea by being an exact reflection of the right shoe. The left is literally a reflection of his journey. If you hold the shoes up to a mirror or look at the shoe prints that are left behind on the ground, one of the shoes is always reflecting on his journey.”

It’s all part of the international odyssey between Cameroon, France and America.

The series’ that both Embiid and Wilson reference, Dragon Ball Z and Star Wars, are modern day epics. They both develop long-term narratives, with multidimensional characters and world-building. As Wilson notes, that’s what people can expect of the Embiid One.

“The storytelling that we introduced with the shoe is definitely a continuous thing,” he says. “That saga concept is something that we will continue.”

Because though this is Embiid’s sneaker, this is Wilson’s origin story, too. This is the first time he’s been the lead designer on a UA basketball sneaker. The stars aligned for him in October 2018. That’s when the Director of Team Sports at UA approached him with the chance to make this project happen. He says he remembers walking in the UA parking lot on a chilly night with his best friend, thinking, Man, this could be really, really big.

Nine months later, on Sunday, July 14, 2019, Wilson got to celebrate his birthday by being the first person at UA to weartest the Embiid One.

“We have a guy who runs the weartest for basketball,” Wilson says. “His name is Mike. He gets shipments in. I think we got size 9s in first. So I was like, When are the weartest pairs coming? Texting him, emailing him. When are the 10.5s coming? When are the 10.5s coming? At some point, I forget when they came…I think they came [during] off-work hours. I may have left work early. So I remember leaving my house at, like, 8 at night; I drive to the office, go into the office, try them on, like, do cuts in the office. Looking crazy. They probably have security footage of me just running around the office. But I just wanted to put them on so I could have them ready to play the game the next day. I was like a little kid.”

Wilson says that the biggest benefit of the sneaker is that anybody can hoop in it, from himself to Embiid to the average consumer.

Though he didn’t get to become president, Embiid is still trying to make the world a better place, regardless of what kind of kid plays in his sneaker. He’s worked hard in both Yaoundé and Philadelphia to establish safe places for kids to learn and grow. He helped to refurbish the Boys and Girls Club of Philadelphia at the end of 2019 and says he still has more to do.

“Another thing which is good with the relationship with [Under Armour], it’s not just about basketball and the shoe,” Embiid says. “We also want to make a difference in the community. I’ve preached that I want to help as many people as I can where I’m from, people in need.”

Even if he can’t be there, the Embiid One “Origin” colorway features an icon on the heel. There’s a heart inside of the star; the heart representing the love of his home and the star representing Cameroon. Home is where the heart is.

“That’s where it all started,” he says. “I was born there, I’m Cameroonian. My whole family is from there. And it didn’t start when I started playing basketball; it started when I was born, with the way I was raised, with everything I was around, with everything I went through. That’s why Cameroon was the main point. There’s a lot of indications on the shoe, in the back of the shoe. It was designed to make sure there was an emphasis on that.”

An emphasis on a dream to change the world, from Yaoundé to Philadelphia.

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Max Resetar is an Associate Editor at SLAM. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

Cover and portrait by Jennifer Pottheiser/Under Armour.

Additional photos via Getty.

The post Joel Embiid Talks About the Journey of Creating the UA Embiid One appeared first on SLAM.

Dr. J. Magic Johnson. Larry Bird. Isiah Thomas. Larry Johnson. And now, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

“It’s crazy that [Converse] kind of started the whole sneaker thing in the NBA back in the day,” Shai Gilgeous-Alexander says. “A few of the best players in the League at that time. Dr. J, Magic and Larry Bird.”

But that’s the past.

“The biggest lesson is that while legacy affords Converse legitimacy, we’ve got to create our own path to connect with the basketball community today,” Ron Johnson, Converse’s General Manager of Global Basketball, tells KICKS.

That means working with Gilgeous-Alexander, Kelly Oubre, Natasha Cloud and Draymond Green to reestablish Converse Hoops and the sneakers the brand releases. So far the All Star Pro BB, the G4 and the All Star BB Evo have dropped with the full support of those players. Johnson and his team are still learning about what makes each one of them different.

“Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is a pathfinder,” Johnson says. “We loved his story–growing up in Hamilton and making his way into the NBA to being one of its rising stars–he’s made it happen for himself through his vision.

“The always energizing, fashion-forward creative Kelly Oubre was the first to join the squad,” Johnson continues. “Kelly is as invested in creative culture as he is basketball. We knew he would be a strong advocate for Converse Hoops as we re-entered the space for the first time in nearly a decade.

“WNBA Champion and social activist Natasha Cloud, we had been following her before her WNBA championship run and worked with her during our Pro Leather campaign in 2019,” Johnson says. “Her love and passion for basketball is equaled by her bold personal vision and sense of purpose off the court. She is a true advocate for the underrepresented communities she stands with.

“NBA champion and avid investor Draymond Green is a proven competitor,” Johnson says. “He’s known for his do-it-all approach on-court that contributed significantly to the Golden State Warriors’ success over the years.”

All four of them will be heavily involved in the storytelling and sneaker creation processes. Johnson and his staff repeatedly emphasize the importance of giving them their own space to be inventive, whether that means working on colorways or on marketing campaigns.

“Obviously as a kid, you see a shoe but you don’t really realize everything that goes into making the shoe from the ground up,” SGA tells KICKS. “That’s probably the biggest thing I realized. It’s a whole process. It’s not just glue the sole to the upper and the upper to the sole, put the laces in.”

“We started this campaign a while back called ‘Converse All Stars,’” Brodrick Foster, Global Footwear Product Director at Converse, says. “That idea exemplifies why we don’t have signature athletes, because we feel everyone can be an All Star. That’s always just been our mantra and our game-changing mindset and why you’re going to start to see these exciting colors and materials and storytelling.”

“We believe that Converse Basketball’s distinction is in offering athletes the ability to showcase their individuality on the court and to support their creative vision off of it,” Johnson says. “That’s what sets us apart. We’re just truly getting started. Expect to see more from us as we color outside the lines and bring a new and fresh perspective to the game and the culture surrounding it.”

Kiss the past goodbye.

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Max Resetar is an Associate Editor at SLAM. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

Photos via Converse and Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images.

The post 2020 Vision: The New Path For Converse Hoops appeared first on SLAM.

Just a little patience. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander moves with just a little bit more poise than everyone else does. He’s on his own time, on and off the court. He’s always been that way.

“That was the way I grew up and was raised,” Gilgeous-Alexander tells KICKS. “To be different and be yourself no matter what or who says anything about you. Just be yourself. That was something that was instilled in me very early. From my parents to the people I’ve been around, it’s always been about being yourself. Individuality, and influencing the world through that. The biggest thing is don’t be afraid to be yourself. Follow your heart. Just be who you are. And go about life that way.”

Gilgeous-Alexander is the latest ballplayer to sign with Converse Hoops. The Hamilton, Ontario, native and second-year pro decided to jump from the Swoosh to Converse and take the road less traveled. It could make all the difference.

He joins Kelly Oubre, the Phoenix Suns’ bucket-getter, Natasha Cloud, point guard for the reigning WNBA champion Washington Mystics, and Draymond Green, three-time NBA champion with the Golden State Warriors, on the Converse Hoops roster.

“I just think where I’m at right now in my career, kind of wanting to get out there a little more, express myself a little bit more, on and off the court, the things they do with their brand, and the vision they have, it was perfect timing,” Gilgeous-Alexander says. “And I’m excited for it.”

Truthfully, there’s a lot to be excited about. Converse reintroduced themselves into the basketball market in April 2019 with the All Star Pro BB silhouette, and they have big plans for the future, pursuing ideas informed by their legendary past. The brand’s connection to the game goes back to 1917, when the All Star basketball shoe (canvas upper and thick rubber outsole) was first produced. The mid-’70s, ’80s and ’90s treated their basketball division very, very well. Julius Erving has been connected to Converse since he was the most entertaining player in the world. Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Isiah Thomas led a group of elite NBA guys who got the Weapon tons of national attention. And Larry Johnson’s Aero Jam silhouette set the stage for his extremely famous “Grandmama” commercials. The 2000s then saw a downturn in activity.

Oubre, Cloud, Green and, maybe most notably, Gilgeous-Alexander are being entrusted to bring Converse back to the top by being unique off the court and performing well on it.

Now that the NBA has returned, Gilgeous-Alexander will be lacing up the Converse All Star BB Evo. He’s part of a dynamic offensive attack for an Oklahoma City Thunder team that casts him as a catalyst for scoring. It’s only his second year in the League, and he’s only 22 years old, but he’s already become a problem for defenses. That same patience he moves with off the floor translates to his in-game style. Though he has plenty of rhythm to himself, his rhythm isn’t standard for the League. He’s somehow both faster and slower than people think, lulling them to sleep with rock-the-baby dribble combos that quickly turn into accelerated contact finishes at the rim. He’s got shifty head fakes that he relies on and a stepback jimmy for when people don’t bite. He craftily works angles to his favor, either by kissing a shot off the glass or uncovering a gap between multiple defenders. His ones are dictated at his speed. And it’s really all done with just a little patience.

“We’ve been talking about this kid for quite some time,” Brodrick Foster, Global Director of Footwear at Converse, says. “Personally, I know of him because he’s a Canadian kid. One of my really good friends who played for St. John’s back in the day, he came through his AAU, Gauchos. As a team, when thinking about who was next…we would just slide the note of his name and text every day. And then when Adrian Stelly, who’s our sports marketing rep, came down and told me we were gonna sign him, I was so happy. This kid is going to be a big deal later on.”

“Later on” might not be all that much later. SGA is averaging almost 20 points per game in just his second season. He’s shown up big in clutch moments for the Thunder, and he already has real playoff experience as a member of the Clippers squad that took the Warriors to six games last season. And he spends nearly every day of work with Chris Paul, soaking in lessons from this generation’s best floor general.

Foster is one of the leaders on the Evo silhouette, so not only has he spent lots of time crafting the sneaker, but he’s also spent time listening to what Gilgeous-Alexander’s looking for.

“Shai is an artist,” Foster says. “He colors up shoes and he’s texting us all the time, like, Hey, what do you guys think of this? What do you think of that?”

Gilgeous-Alexander really does spend a decent chunk of time with a pencil and paper.

“I sketch a little bit,” he says humbly. “As a kid in elementary school, you have art block or art period. I don’t know, I just always looked forward to that, was always excited for that part of school. And then I got away from it a little bit and then picked it back up a little bit more once I got to the League and had a lot more free time. Didn’t know what I was doing with my free time so I started drawing a little bit more and found my love again.

“A lot of it is clothing stuff,” he continues. “I’ll sketch out pants or hoodies or shirts. If I get an idea, I’ll put it in my notes and then I’ll try to go to the sketching board and sketch it, whether it be a symbol or meshing two symbols in one, and then try to put it on a hoodie in a cool way. Whatever it may be, but most of the time, it’s clothes or shoes.”

The mutual admiration for expression and creativity is what brought SGA and Converse together. Foster and his team have left the door wide open for any of the four players to communicate their ideas and feelings. Converse has spent decades dedicating real estate on sneakers in imaginative ways, both internally and externally with collaborators. They’ve released Chuck Taylors in all the standard primary colors; in collaborations with Jerry Lorenzo, Tyler, the Creator, Virgil Abloh and Millie Bobby Brown; and in dropped colorways with messages of support for the LGBTQ community.

Ron Johnson, Converse’s General Manager of Global Basketball, says that Gilgeous-Alexander, Cloud, Oubre and Green will have the chance to cook up anything they want to.

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“The democratic and expressive nature of the game is what brought us back,” Johnson tells KICKS. “It’s who we are as a brand. It’s the start of our story, and it’s what led us to have one of the most iconic shoes in the world. Every person has a different experience or entry point to the world of basketball. And the game extends well beyond the court—to the streets and culture where basketball is played, lived and consumed. That’s why it’s important to create space for our roster to be authentic to themselves. We would be doing a disservice to them to only think of them as professional basketball players. They’ve got bold ideas, strong personal vision and creative points of view. The world deserves to see their full story, and we’re happy to celebrate and amplify them as they create progress.”

The canvas that Gilgeous-Alexander will get to paint on is the Evo. It’s Converse Hoops’ third basketball silhouette, directly shaped by insight from players and by studying the All Star Pro BB.

The Evo’s foundation is a Nike React midsole, which then trails up to a 5/8s cut. A plushly padded collar transitions into an engineered mesh upper. And the lead colorway is split right down the middle.

“We got a lot of learnings from our BB Pro last year,” Foster says. “The lacings might be a little bit too long. The material’s a little too tight. So it was a lot of things that we learned throughout this process. There were really three things from the BB that we wanted to improve.

“One was the lockdown,” he continues. “Players don’t want to worry about coming out of their shoe when they’re running and cutting and jumping. Ankle support was another thing that came out of it. Some [players] really talked about how they had heel slippage. How do we perfect that? And last but not least, I’m gonna harp on this: LeagueFits All-Stars. Style. We’re going to be the lifestyle basketball brand that you see that is always going to have that look and authentic feel when it comes to our basketball sneakers.”

Foster and his team hit the Nike Sports Research Lab at the Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, OR, to figure it all out. Because the Swoosh owns Converse, they work in the same space, use the same tech and get to call on insight from the same designers. Eric Avar, who has worked on the Kobe Bryant and Penny Hardaway signature lines and the OG Nike Hyperdunk, among a multitude of other huge projects, had a big influence on Converse’s reentry into hoops and the BB.

It makes sense that Gilgeous-Alexander would feel comfortable in Converse’s new basketball models; he’s spent years playing in the Black Mamba’s Nike series. Avar was the mastermind who helped to develop Bean’s light and low-cut footwear, a similar road that Foster and Converse Hoops are traversing now. Foster knows that because of the groundwork that Avar and Bryant laid, both consumers and athletes tend to mess with low silhouettes. So the Evo isn’t a traditional mid or high.

Another insight borrowed from Nike can be seen in the cushioning. The Swoosh’s React foam is a proprietary material they made in 2018. They count it as their most durable, lightweight and responsive foam.

“When I go to look for a car, the first thing I look [for]—of course the exterior’s going to be the thing that draws me in—but I say pop that engine,” Foster says. “What does that engine look like? And for us, our engine works so well; and the feedback that we got from all consumers and athletes [was] that Nike React works so well, we kept the same engine. There was no need to change that. Of course, you’re going to see some things like ice bottoms and some color outsoles. The aesthetic is going to change, but the core of the engine and how it runs will be the same ride.”

Foster, as he mentions the look, says, “The last part is really around that functionality and style. That’s why you see the knit upper. It gives you a little bit more mobility. And then that style point is that 50-50 split. It gives you that yin and yang look. You can have bold blocking or you can have a little bit more settled down. These are the things that our athletes talked to us about. There’s times when you can just have something as simple as a black and red with the white but there might be something I want to be a little more bold, like an Oklahoma City where it’s blue, orange, a little bit of white. There’s also allowing for graphics that you may see later on.”

SGA has already shown off a few graphic treatments on the Pro BB, working out in a low with the OKC logo on it and playing in a mid with an image of fire on it. He won’t give any insights for what he has planned yet, saying that it’s still a secret. But he does offer that there will be layered storytelling between the court and the tunnel. (One time for @LeagueFits.)

“So whether it’s a fit through the tunnel or before the game, kind of having the same theme or colorway as the shoe on the court,” he says. “Expressing my love for fashion, whatever it may be, in the summertime and fashion shows. Just connecting the two and showing the world that passion for both.”

Everything else will come in time. Just move like Shai. Have a little patience.

—

GRAB YOUR COPY OF KICKS 23

Max Resetar is an Associate Editor at SLAM. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

Photos by Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images.

The post THE ARTIST: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Covers KICKS 23 appeared first on SLAM.

Could it mean that the act of dreaming, of imagining the future, of hoping for more, even if there’s only one last dollar left to spend, is what pushes people forward? Is that how a pawn becomes a king? With just a dollar and a dream?

Could that be how a kid named Jermaine from Fayetteville, NC went from reading these very pages of SLAM with Nas’ Illmatic playing in the background to a generation-defining, Grammy-winning musician named J. Cole? Or does that sound fake? Does it sound like the dream turned out too well? Like that kid didn’t put in the time?

Could it be that the public doesn’t know about how he took on New York’s winters for 11 years straight? Maybe they didn’t see how Shawn Carter wouldn’t release his music without a “single?” Didn’t they realize that kid was just asking the Lord for a sign? Didn’t they understand he was trying to show us something?

Could it possibly be true? That the dream actually became a reality? How did the Young Simba become the Grown Simba? Did he do it by taking a power trip to work out his heartache? Did he capture the youth’s attention with a different mixture of flow and truth? Did he manage to hold on to the creativity and integrity that made him a rarity?

Could it be that the rest of the world took notice? Did corporate America suddenly want a piece of the genuine passion he walked with? Did they throw themselves at him? Did he dodge the land of the snakes and the false prophets for years?

Could it be that PUMA, an international sneaker powerhouse nearing its 75th birthday, managed to understand his dream? How did the signature sneaker they cooked up for him transform into a physical reflection of what it means to have a fantasy? Is the young kid that read the basketball bible now an adult that’s happy with the RS-Dreamer?

So is Dreamville just a record label? What do you think?

The post Dream On appeared first on SLAM.

Sunrise in Miami.

A black sky is starting to give way to a blazing orange ember horizon. Biscayne Bay’s coming into focus and the breeze is picking up off the water, rolling through the air with some bite. The view of the Bay, clear and wide, is beginning to trail up into the quickly changing sky, which is now forming into a sharp blue. It’s still just a little chilly, but the city’s already up on this Monday morning in early March. There’s some traffic on I-95, breakfast spots have their doors open, dogs are out for their walks and life’s moving along like a song, like all the famous anthems about these beaches, clubs and people are actually true.

It’s the sunlight that’s different down here. It reacts to every corner, every turn, every move. It follows with each person, giving them their own spotlight, but still it somehow lights up the whole city at the same time.

The sunshine is stunning in Ray Allen’s backyard. It’s radiating off the sand and the water that’s part of his property, bouncing off the house doors and furniture that dot the space. And when he pulls out his Air Jordan XI PE, the sunlight catches the toebox’s patent leather angelically.

The two-time champ has his one-of-ones out because he’s come to understand the significance of history. His post-playing days have given him perspective on how much of an impact basketball and sneakers have on people. His travels around the world have let him see firsthand just how big the game has become and how many people love the kicks he played in. And he wants to make sure that’s documented.

So while that early morning crispness fades into a mid-morning humidity, Allen breaks open another sneaker box, placing it right next to the XIs. It features another pair of PEs, another part of his story.

This box houses Air Jordan XX8s done up in Miami Heat colors with some championship gold accents complementing the white base. It’s the colorway he had on when he made one of the biggest shots in NBA Finals history.

June 18, 2013. Game 6 against the Spurs. The Heat are down 95-92 with 19.4 seconds left. The whole building is up and singing along to an instrumental version of “Seven Nation Army” while the defending champs bring the ball down the floor. Mario Chalmers dribbles deep into the left corner. LeBron James runs an odd-angle V cut and pops off a Chris Bosh screen, one that both Tony Parker and Boris Diaw go under. He misses a three from the left wing. Eleven seconds. Bosh rises high and snatches the offensive rebound. The clock reads 8.1. He finds Allen, who swiftly retreats to the right corner, sets his feet and lets fly. Time check: 6.6 seconds.

His momentum carries him backward and it forces his right leg to kick out ahead of his left. His left arm uses Parker, the shot’s defender, as an anchor, steadying the rest of his body on the landing, while that right arm holds the follow- through. Holds. Holds. Holds.

Time check: 6.3 seconds.

There’s a moment, a very brief moment, of silence right before the shot drops. The singing stops after James misses the first jumper. There’s shock when Bosh pulls down the rebound and finds Allen. Then the singing ends completely, even though the beat continues to play. While the Spurs’ defense shuffles and Parker meets Allen at the three-point line, the crowd is collectively terrified. They’re left standing still, petrified in-place.

That’s when the silence is the loudest. Allen’s follow-through is still up. Parker has helped him regain his balance. Forty-thousand eyes watch the ball in the arena. Millions more around the world follow it, too.

Then…

Swish.

Bliss.

Each and every person in the lower bowl lifts two hands above their head while the noise crashes back into AmericanAirlines Arena. The possession was a rollercoaster and that was its peak.

The Heat went on to win Game 6 in overtime and then a hard-fought Game 7 to capture their second consecutive title. Allen’s signature is left on a defining moment in League history.

Now that he has both pairs out in front of him, he takes a look back. It’s been, he says, a few years since he’s even taken them out of their boxes.

“They’re the end and the beginning,” he tells SLAM. “I say that these two shoes are connected because this shoe was the shoe that got us to where we needed to be and ultimately the shoe that I was wearing when we won the championship in 2013.

“This is what I wore on Ring Ceremony night,” he says about the XI. “Both of those shoes, to me, have a very soft spot in my heart because, obviously, winning. Obviously, I had the ones in Boston, 2008, the gold and green ones, which are at my house up north. These two represent a great deal for me. I always keep those somewhere in the house hidden.”

Here comes the sun again. Palm trees line either end of Allen’s backyard. The center of our solar system sits symmetrically between them. Its light has chosen the lateral side of the XIs gold’s patent leather to shine. Gold to gold.

As he mentioned, Allen doesn’t take these out all that often. It doesn’t get old to him when he does. He says it’s like watching an old movie and having the moment where its plot instantly comes back to memory.

“These represent one thing and one thing only,” he says with the XI in his hand. “When you bring that out, it’s like being able to relive certain moments.”

Allen made acts of on-court brilliance into a habit. He hit the most three-pointers in NBA history, played in 10 All-Star Games, won an Olympic Gold medal and is the author of a vault’s worth of unbelievable highlights. Those are the stories that he and Jordan Brand like to capture with his PEs.

“Ray had some pretty big moments, some record-breaking moments, some championship moments,” Gentry Humphrey, VP of Footwear at Jordan Brand, tells SLAM.

Those plays and accomplishments would spark the creativity and then colorways would pop up.

“With Ray, because he and I have such a good friendship, he would always hit me up,” Humphrey continues. “You know, Hey G, I’m thinking about doing this. How about this? Or I’d come to him and say, Hey, you know what? Maybe we should create something kind of fresh for you for whatever thing was coming up. He and I would talk about it. He was down for doing whatever throughout his career. While he never had any signature shoes, even some of the PEs that we did for him, they’re probably more sought after than even some signature shoes because he was just kind of like that. He’s down for being different. Kids were like, What’s Ray got on today? He was always like that. Sometimes he’d give us some stories. And Ray, he’s not afraid to do wild stuff so it’s a little easier to work with someone who’s not afraid to push it.”

“Gentry, he has a great eye for style, and oftentimes I would sit with his design team,” Allen says.

The design process was something Allen witnessed first-hand during his days on the Sonics, spending time with the Jordan Brand team at the marina and watching them draw inspiration from the windows on boats. He’d give them feedback on everything he did and didn’t like.

As Allen traveled the globe throughout his 18-year NBA career, he learned all about storytelling and the value of moments, from something as small as windows on boats to something as big as a title-saving jump shot.

“It’s interesting, because having this XI just tied to my legacy, as much as I can think about the moment that I played in them, that moment is not mine anymore,” Allen says. “It’s about the kids that watched it and what it meant to them and how they clamor after the shoe and it forced them to go out and shoot because they wanted to be on that stage and have that celebration.”

That awareness, he says, fully formed about five or six years ago when he was in China to host a camp for 15 young ballplayers. One girl traveled 11 hours by train to get there. And she stood up for the whole entire trip.

“The stories she’s telling me,” he says about that kid, “and you realize the impact that you have on people. You walk out of the arena and sometimes you see people leave the arena and they’ve got jerseys on. You go to a restaurant and they’ve got jerseys on. But we fail to recognize the viewership. LeaguePass is real and it’s all over the world. So when you realize that, you say to yourself, Now I have an opportunity to understand the impact that you’ve had when you walk away from it.”

Allen was one of those kids who didn’t have Jordans.

“The Air Jordan XI, to me, I still think about when I was a kid not being able to afford a pair and working hard to get to that status, to that level where I was an ambassador for the Brand. I didn’t own a pair of Jordans until I got to the League,” he says. His first pair of XIs, he says, came with no fanfare. “Yeah, just got them in the shoebox, random shoebox.”

Allen was one of the first people to sign with Brand Jordan, as it was known at the start. (Shout out to Eddie Jones, Vin Baker, Derek Anderson and Michael Finley, aka the First Five, aka Team Jordan.) Though he didn’t own a pair of Js, he was watching along, referring to them as “otherworldly.” He knew the formula for their releases and he always looked forward to the playoffs so he could see what next season’s silhouette was. He’s been a student of Michael’s, like he’s a student of life. He’s constantly reading, continually learning. He darts from talking about examining sheet music to watching fighter jet pilots fly to describing the shooters that he considers better than him, a list that includes Mike Miller, Eddie House and James Jones.

Earlier in the morning, when he had just broke out the XIs and the sun was still rising, Allen was holding his “Championship” PEs. He had them in his hands and was looking down at them intently. He noticed something on the shiny patent leather and he started scrubbing them to make sure they were perfect. Their weight has never been lost on him. They were his idea in the first place.

“I just knew after we won the championship in Boston in 2008 that I had to wear something special going into the Ring Ceremony,” he says. “What was great about the Brand was they knew that I was right. That next year, we’re playing against Cleveland on opening night and I said, I got to have something on my feet that symbolizes a championship. At the time, I loved playing in the XIs because they gave me the best grip on the court, especially as much as I’m coming tight off screens. They came up with the gold and green colorway. So 2008 happened. It’s like a stamp on that moment. And then obviously 2013 was the same opportunity. And to be able to stamp those moments with these shoes, like I said earlier, it’s always the shoe that tells the story at the end of the day.”

His 2008 “Championship” PEs feature the same gold patent leather as his 2013 editions. But it’s the 2013 joints that really stand out.

The tongues on the right and left side are both different. The left tongue’s exterior reads “Sugar Ray” in the iconic Jordan XI font. The left tongue’s interior has a patch that says “2008.” Then the right tongue’s interior is where it says “2013.” And finally the right tongue’s exterior also uses the XI’s custom font to spell out “2013 Champ.” Both exterior tongues feature little rings.

A “34” replaces the customary “23” and “45” normally seen on general release XIs. His jump shot PE logo rounds out the colorway.

“Gentry was somewhat of the brainchild behind it because we were trying to figure out a logo many years back,” Allen remembers. “And it’s symbolic obviously to who I am, to take my signature and then embody the spirit of my shot. If you had me running down the floor as a black shadow and the shot went up, people could tell you, Hey, I know who that was. To be able to embody that in the logo, to me, when I saw it, I was like, It’s perfect.”

Time keeps on slipping while Allen speaks. Miami’s really bringing the heat now and that sunlight is beating down. But it keeps on finding the patent leather on every turn and every move. The sneakers are glistening with their own aura, levitating under the light.

“This shoe is symbolic with greatness, and the gold represents winning,” the Champ says. “Because this is a special piece and it represents…this is greatness right here. This is winning. This is a Gold medal. This is an NBA Championship. That’s what the Brand has always been about. You have to be bold and you have to be a pioneer to step out there and say, I can be great and I will be great.”

The XIs go back inside the shoebox after that.

A true historical artifact documented.

Yesterday can’t be retold. It’s cemented.

Afternoon is here now. South Beach is getting activated. Little Havana is bustling. Then the breeze starts to roll back in. Dinner spots open their doors and dogs are out for their night walks. Sunset in Miami.

—

GRAB YOUR COPY OF JORDANS VOL. 6

Max Resetar is an Associate Editor at SLAM. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

Portraits by Jon Lopez.

The post GOLD MINE: The Story of Ray Allen’s Air Jordan XI PE appeared first on SLAM.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander announced today that he’s linked up with Converse Hoops, joining Kelly Oubre, Natasha Cloud and Draymond Green on the still-expanding roster.

“I show the kids that no matter where you come from, anything is possible,” he said in a brand new video that released today.

Just four days away from turning 22, Gilgeous-Alexander has already made a national name for himself. After a solid rookie season with the LA Clippers, he’s made a statement in his sophomore campaign by dropping an average of nearly 20 points a night and helping the Thunder stay securely in the playoff race out west. His unique pace on the floor makes him a difficult cover.

And his eye for unique fashion makes him the favorite over on LeagueFits.

“I’m a guy that wants to stand out, be different from the pack,” he said.

And now the Canadian-born, Kentucky Wildcat product is making the move from Nike to Converse where he’ll be given freedom to creatively express himself through sneakers and fashion.

Stay tuned for more.

The post Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is Newest Member of Converse Hoops appeared first on SLAM.

SLAM Presents JORDANS Vol. 6: the defining basketball sneaker is fully chronicled in this special edition issue.

Michael Jordan’s personal XI Lows, an exclusive look at the “Miami Heat” XIs that were made just for Ray Allen, Chris Paul’s and Deion Sanders’ PEs and a detailed breakdown of the design of the XI and its impact on the world. The mag also includes an interview with Marcus Jordan, Michael’s son.

Two separate covers mark the importance of the XI’s most influential makeups, the “Concords” and the “Breds.” Much more on the shiniest, flyest and most iconic basketball sneaker ever is waiting for you. Head to our store to cop now.

The post SLAM Presents JORDANS Vol. 6 Is Available Now appeared first on SLAM.

“The inspiration was Chicago,” Don C tells SLAM. “I wanted to make the shoe feel like a welcome to the city, especially because it was coming this weekend. I think I’ve mentioned before how the blue comes from the flag. We tweaked it to just match more of the electrification of what this weekend brings and the energy that Amex brings. I think it was good timing for us to do it this weekend ‘cause it just represented Chicago and the spotlight is on the city for this weekend.”

The sneaker is Don C’s second AF1 Hi collaboration with Nike that fuses the first three Air Force models—length and sole of the AF1, AF2 branding on the heel and the AF3s FORCE-branded tongue and diamond-shaped eye stay on the forefront. The city’s flag is also featured on the inside of the tongue with a red satin liner.  

“The Air Force 1 is a shoe I fell in love with when I was in high school in 1990,” he says. “It’s been kind of timeless for me since. I have to say out of every model of shoes I’ve supported, this is the one that every year I wear it … Air Force 1s, I always repped, so this shoe is very dear to me.”

For the weekend, American Express hosted a pop-up experience in the Wicker Park neighborhood, just a few minutes from the Chicago curator’s RSVP Gallery retail space that opened in 2009. The three-night exhibit featured a dining experience from some of the Chi’s greatest chefs and a Q+A session with Don C hosted by Cari Champion that talked the design process, inspiration and all things All-Star Weekend.

“Amex is all about partnerships and building community and that’s the similar principle of Just Don and RSVP Gallery,” Don C says. “That’s what brought us together and they wanted to bring something exclusive to their community as they always do, but never in the sneaker realm. I’m just happy to be the first to be able to do this in this category with such an amazing partner like American Express.”

—

Drew Ruiz is an Associate Editor at SLAM. Follow him on Twitter @DrewRuiz90.

Photos via Getty.

The post Don C Talks AF1 Hi ‘Just Don’ Collab with American Express & More appeared first on SLAM.

Nike and the Los Angeles-based boutique have collaborated on eight pairs of Air Max 90s. UNDFTD has picked four colors – Infrared, Laser Blue, Yellow and Green – on one of Tinker Hatfield’s iconic sneaker designs. Each shoe, featured on a white or black base, has a stripe in the aforementioned color that goes around the sneaker, covers the mudgaurd and is branded with the company’s five-strike logo on the heels.

Hit StockX to cop your pair(s).

The post The ‘UNDFTD’ Nike Air Max 90s Are Now Available on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

To close out 2019, Jordan Brand is giving the VIs the denim treatment. The pair features two variations of denim – light and dark along the uppers of the sneaker. The tongue patch, which sits on top of the tongue, has a Jumpman branded on top of leather material. The pair also has red lace locks and a translucent sole.

The Price Premium (over original retail price) is at -16.5% with an average sale price of $193. Grab your pair on StockX.

The post The ‘Washed Denim’ AJVI is Now Available on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

A fan favorite in the SB community, the “Raygun” released in white and black back in 2005 and is releasing 15 years later. The updated pair features pebbled leather, the iconic alien on the sides and has a tie-dye print that is featured near the Swoosh and along the heel counter.

The white pair has an average sale price of $305 while the black pair is selling for $260. Looking to add to your SB collection? Hit StockX to grab the “White” and “Black” Raygun SBs.

The post The ‘Black’ & ‘White’ Nike SB Dunk Low Raygun Tie-Dye Are Now Available on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

Jordan Brand has released a blue-toned AJ4, similar to the popular “Eminem” for the holiday season, which features specific materials to keep you fresh during the wintertime – canvas-like material with a fleece lining to stay warm.

On the Three Stripes side, adidas is restocking the popular “Zebra” Yeezy Boost 350 that released in February 2017 before the decade comes to an end. The brand also introduces the “Azael” Yeezy Boost 700 V3, a new silhouette that features RPU overlays that covers the engineered mesh material like a cage. Black sits atop the upper near the tongue and laces.

Treat yourself this holiday season and grab the “Winterized” AJ4, “Zebra” Yeezy Boost 350 V2 and “Azael” Yeezy Boost 700 V3s on StockX.

The post StockX Sneaker Weekend Roundup: ‘Winterized’ AJ4, ‘Zebra’ Yeezy Boost 350 V2 & ‘Azael’ Yeezy Boost 700 V3 appeared first on SLAM.

First up, Virgil Abloh put his Off-White-branded touch on the popular Nike silhouette on three low-top models – Michigan, Pine Green and University Red – and added orange tabs, the famous “SHOELACES” laces, an exposed tongue and a double-lacing system, which pays homage to to Nike’s Flywire laces.

Adidas is releasing another Yeezy Boost 350 V2, which features a myriad of multi-toned interwoven into the Primeknit uppers. There are also reflective touches along the laces, too.

The price premium (over original price) for the “Michigan” dunks is 208.5% for an average sale price of $585; “Pine Green” is at 170.6% selling for $538; “University Red” is at 232.4% selling for $696; and the “Yechiel” 350 V2s are at 34.1% and selling at $360.

Don’t strike out on release day and hit StockX to grab the Off-White Dunks and “Yecheil” Yeezy Boost 350 V2.

The post The Off-White Dunks & ‘Yecheil’ Yeezy Boost 350 V2 Are Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

StockX will announce the sneaker available each day and will pick 20 new winners for that pair. The sneaker reveal of the day and all winners will be announced on StockX’s Instagram, Twitter and website landing page. The promo code itself has no value and has an unlimited amount of uses – the more you buy, the more entries you earn.

Eligible to U.S. residents only. For more information, click here.

The post StockX Presents ‘Buy to WIn’ Promo: 100 Winners in 5 Days appeared first on SLAM.

Originally a Friends & Family release, StockX is giving 30 consumers a chance to own a pair of the Paris-based boutique’s collab with Jordan Brand with a $20 donation. All net proceeds will benefit Oceana, an organization committed to the protection and restoration of our oceans.

Promo ends 12/20 at 11:59 p.m. EST and is available to legal residents of the U.S., UK, Germany and France who are 18 years or older. For full details, click here.

The post StockX Gives Consumers Chance to Own ‘colette’ AJ1 for $20 appeared first on SLAM.

Jordan Brand has brought back one of the most iconic XI colorways during holiday season as they’ve been doing since 2009. The 2019 version of XIs features black uppers with the popular patent leather overlays, red Jumpman, white insignia “23” on the heel and red translucent outsole.

On the Three Stripes side, Adidas is dropping another volt-colored Yeezy Boost. The sneaker features black accents interwoven along the Primeknit base with teal laces.

Looking to complete that Christmas fit? Hit StockX to grab the “Bred” XI and “Yeezreel” 350s.

The post The ‘Bred’ AJXI & ‘Yeezreel’ Yeezy Boost 350 V2 Are Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

After a successful run with the Terra Kiger 5 and Vapor Street, Virgil Abloh puts his deconstructed stamp on the Waffle Racers, which include double lace units, bungee cord that overlaps the laces, track spikes and a nylon tongue. The price premium (over original retail price) for the Vivid Sky is 16.7% with an average sale price of $188; White is 26.7% with an average sale price of $194; Black is 16.7% with an average sale price of $179.

Looking to add to your Off-White Collection? Hit StockX to grab your pair(s).

The post The ‘Vivid Sky,’ ‘White’ & ‘Black’ Off-White Nike Waffle Racers Are Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

StockX presents Winner’s Choice ReStockX, giving five winners a chance to secure the aforementioned Yeezy Boost 350s or Supreme Bandana Box Logo Hoodie for placing a $1 bid between December 10-12. The winners (2 US, 2 EU, 1 CAN) will be eligible to pick between the shoes or hoodie. StockX will charge the customer if they win the bid.

For full details regarding the promotion, click here.

The post StockX Presents Winner’s Choice ReStockX! Win Your Heat for $1! appeared first on SLAM.

As part of the “Fearless Ones” Collection, this pair is of 1s is from the brainchild of Edison Chen and Clot. The pair features the famous silk detailing, removable uppers, a coin-like feature on the laces and black Swoosh with stitching that fades and becomes a single stitch towards the heel. The price premium (over original retail price) is at 187.9% with an average sale price of $388.

Looking to add another pair of AJ1s to your collection? Hit StockX to grab your pair.

The post The ‘Clot’ Air Jordan 1 Mid is Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

For more information, terms and conditions and a full product list, click here.

The post Black Friday. StockX. Big Wins All Weekend. appeared first on SLAM.

The AJ1, a popular sneaker and a fan favorite, has released in a “Bloodline” colorway, which is now available on StockX. This latest colorway pays homage to the Chicago Bulls with black along the uppers with red lining, laces and a trim on the sole that makes it pop. The popular “Nike Air” branding is featured on the tongue with the aforementioned colors, too.

Sneakerheads can never have enough pairs of 1, so hit StockX to grab your pair.

The post The ‘Bloodline’ Air Jordan 1 is Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

First up is the restock of the popular “Static Black” Yeezy Boost 350 V2 that released back in June in anticipation of the big shopping day. Featuring an all-black upper with the iconic side stripe and reflective hints along the laces and red touches along the heel tab.

Missed out or looking to re-up? Hit StockX to grab your pair.

The post The ‘Static Black’ Yeezy Boost 350 V2 is Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

To commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the IV, Jordan Brand honors the four original colorways – White Cement, Fire Red and Military Blue and Black Cement – with a mashup on the iconic Tinker Hatfield-designed sneaker. Each sneaker features a white leather upper with Fire Red, black, and Military Blue detailing with a cement midsole, mismatched tongue and the popular “Nike Air” heel branding.

The Price Premium (over original retail price) is at 4.0% with an average sale price of $237. Hit StockX to add another pair of IVs to your collection.

The post The ‘What The’ Air Jordan IV is Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

With previous models – Bone White, Salt, Utility Black, Blush, Super Moon Yellow and Soft Vision – that featured mesh along the uppers, this latest 500 model features Stone neoprene and suede with a reflective piping. It also has a matching Adiprene midsole and a gum bottom.

The Price Premium (over original retail price) is currently 20.0% with an average sale price of $279. Hit StockX to cop your pair before release day.

The post The ‘Stone’ Yeezy 500 is Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

JORDANS Vol. 5 tells two stories that are forever intertwined. The first, about the Air Jordan III, is a tale about the sneaker that convinced Michael Jordan to stay with Nike. And the second, about the Air Jordan IV, narrates the sneaker that helped MJ elevate his game to unseen levels.

Whether you start with the III, or flip it over and start with the IV, there are exclusive stories and photos for all Jordanheads. Grab your copy at our online store now!

RELATED: SLAM 224 Is On Sale Now

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Originally the Yeezy Boost 350 V3, Ye’s newest silhouette in his Three Stripes line was given its own name. The sneaker, which features the same shape as the 350s, comes with a never-before-seen PrimeKnit pattern on the upper and doesn’t come with the popular lateral side strip. There’s also an upgraded Boost midsole and an engineered outsole grip that adds the finishing touches on the sneaker.

The Price Premium (over original retail price) is at 239.1% and has an average sale price of $722. Hit StockX to grab your pair.

The post The ‘Alien’ Yeezy Boost 380 is Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

After a successful first AF100 collab, Travis Scott’s latest collaboration pays homage to his grandmother’s house Missouri City, TX. The AF1 draws inspiration from workwear gear and features all types outdoor material – canvas, suede, corduroy, leather and flannel along the uppers of the sneaker. La Flame’s AF1 also has a removable tongue with a utility zipper that goes through the middle.

The Price Premium (over original retail price) for the “Cactus Jack” AF1 is currently at 299.6% with an average sale price of $680. Secure your pair and hit StockX to grab your pair.

The post The ‘Cactus Jack’ Air Force 1 is Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

As part of the “Fearless Ones” Collection, Los Angeles-based artist Blue the Great adds his personal touches on the iconic silhouette. Taking on the mid cut, the sneaker features an array of colors from red, blue, orange and green in suede. Cream corduroy is also featured with a black chenille swoosh. A “Blue” in bubble-lettered graffiti tag sits near the heel.

The “Blue the Great” AJ1 Mid has an Average Sale Price of $245 is now available for purchase on StockX.

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And then there was Zaza Pachulia. The Orlando Magic drafted Pachulia in the second round of the 2003 NBA Draft as a 19-year-old center out of the Republic of Georgia. After bouncing around the L his first few seasons, Pachulia eventually found a home in Atlanta, where he anchored the Hawks for much of the 2000s. After a few more stops, he ended up in Golden State, where Pachulia put in the work and went on to win two NBA titles. 

This summer, Pachulia retired after 16 seasons. Finished on the floor, he stayed near the game by taking a position as a consultant with the Golden State Warriors, where he does things like ring the opening bell at the stock market as well as get an overall view of how an NBA franchise runs. 

Yet it wasn’t just on the court that Pachulia put in work during his career. He also has always been something of a serial entrepreneur, taking classes and dabbling in various companies. His latest venture involved teaming up with some businessmen in his native Georgia to help kickstart a shoe brand, Crosty. We recently caught up with Pachulia, who if anything surely understands that on the road to success, nothing is easy.

—

SLAM: I imagine it must be kind of weird for you as training camps start, and the first time in a long time you’re not showing up as a player.

Zaza: Yeah, for 16 years I’ve been going through the same process. Mentally to be prepared for the moment it was so helpful. Another amazing thing that happened, obviously, is I joined an organization with probably the most memorable years I had, with the Warriors. So yeah, I might not be on the court, but to be engaged in the process and all that, it’s so helpful. It’s a great opportunity, first of all, to learn to see this business from this angle and obviously being on the court is great, but you really never kind of knew what it took from the front office and the meetings and how the decisions were made, so I was a big part of it for the last couple of weeks. It definitely helps the transition. It helps me to not think about playing. Of course, you miss basketball, but you’re still in basketball, so I couldn’t ask for more than that.

SLAM: You said you’re mentally ready to step away from the game, but how long did it take you to make the decision? Even if you’re mentally ready, it must still be a hard decision for you to make.

Zaza: Absolutely. I’m really curious how I’m going to deal with the first game, the official opening. I’m sure it’s going to be a different feeling. But to be honest, I look at it as a business decision. Even though basketball is my passion, I’ve been doing it for such a long period of time. This seemed the same as any team coming and offering you the chance to play another season. But maybe it’s even better, because it’s a great way to start your next chapter, especially when you’re talking about being around the guys like Bob Myers and Steve Kerr and Joe Lacob. I had the good fortune to meet with a lot of our ownership group while I played here. And the overall experience that’s around it the Bay Area and the Warriors, it’s amazing. To start this chapter this way, I’m thankful and fortunate. 

SLAM: Give me one moment from your playing career that you’ll never be able to forget.

Zaza: I’ve been for fortunate to have a few of those moments. Obviously since you and I have a lot of Atlanta ties, the 2008 playoffs against the Boston Celtics…after Game 6…

SLAM: Nothing easy! Nothing easy!

Zaza: (laughing) I feel like that’s when people really got to know me, especially being part of a young team, on the radar for the fanbase and for NBA, for teams that was trying to win the championship. We were this young team and a guy coming from Republic of Georgia—a lot of people don’t even know where the country is located at, but I kind of felt like people got to know me. Most importantly, they got to know my personality. That was the most important thing. Because this is something that doesn’t come out in the stats. I think a couple seconds of my personality was out there for everybody. I remember that night I got so many text messages and emails and phone calls, it’s crazy, like I won the championship. 

SLAM: And then you ended up going on to win two titles with the Warriors.

Zaza: Both of them were amazing, because the first is the first—it’s great. First love, first kiss, you name it, the first championship, it is just totally different. And winning the second championship was even sweeter, winning on the road. You already know that feeling, so for that feeling to come and to get to experience it again, it’s great. So, those three moments.

SLAM: I remember talking to you about fashion and style ten years ago, even before the whole NBA thing took off where guys were dressing for the runway and all that kind of stuff. You’ve always cared about how you looked and how you dressed. Now it seems kind of fitting that you’re involved in a shoe company that makes stylish shoes. How did that come about?

Zaza: Obviously, being from Europe always helps because of the fashion there. And being 6-11 is pretty challenging when you’re talking about fashion. But I had no idea back then that this was coming. It was totally, totally on accident. I had no plans to make an investment in the shoe company, especially when you play basketball at that age you just concentrate. Yeah, you want to have a shoe deal, something I have all my career, but probably I was dreaming about that more than this. 

The way Crosty and I got started together was really interesting, because after I won the first championship I got a pretty huge box and it was from a Georgia address. So I opened it and I’m pulling out this nice box, you could tell from the quality of box it was something serious. And once I opened the black box, and there was a letter from Georgia saying congratulations on your first championship, about how I made Georgia proud and here’s a little gift from us. So, I opened it obviously and I took it out. I pulled it out and it’s a shoe. It’s a sneaker. It’s my favorite sneaker color—white—and it’s leather, and everything is all in place. The message said it’s a Georgia company, Crosty, but I had never heard about it. I was like, how the hell did they know my size, especially the white color, [which is] something that I would be wearing most of the time literally with everything, either a suit or casual—I like just white colored shoes, I think it goes with anything. So, I Googled it and I read about the company. Once I went back to Georgia, I wanted to meet these people and support them because you could sense the quality there. 

SLAM: So how did you guys connect? 

Zaza: I ended up reaching out to them—Georgia is small so it’s easy to get in touch with anybody you want to, so I reached out to them and I met with them. The first meeting was great, so I asked them how they heard about my shoe size and my favorite color, and they said they checked [my] Instagram and most of the pictures I was wearing the white color shoes so they decided to send me the white colored sneakers. And obviously I’ve been wearing them pretty often. The second meeting I said, well, think about some ideas how we can work together. So then we met each other again and talked about the values, what’s your goal, what’s your big picture. It was more like the first meeting was getting to know each other, and the second time it was more of a business meeting. And I said, you know what, I love the story that they had, I love the people behind it and they were super motivated guys. 

SLAM: And what was the story behind it?

Zaza: Basically, there are the Mikaia brothers and they were born and raised in the Abkhazia region—it’s a region of Abkhazia that is occupied by Russia right now. I’m not trying to go into politics but they had to leave after the war, and they had to leave home, leave everything there. They just literally went away with whatever clothes they had and nothing else, basically. They moved to Tbilisi back in the mid ‘90s, not knowing many people. So, both brothers started searching for freedom, and the whole country was searching for freedom, and was just trying to find a way to live and operate. And they said if you want to walk forward to freedom you should have comfortable shoes, and that’s how they started making those shoes. 

SLAM: That’s a great story.

Zaza: The guys had nothing whatsoever, they lost their home, friends and everything they had. They started from zero and now they have such a cool story and such a cool brand. It’s about the freedom, it’s about the quality, it’s about walking towards that freedom. So, it’s a cool thing and I definitely got involved into it and there are motivated people behind this brand—energetic with big plans, and I would like to be part of it. And I ended up becoming their partner, so I’m very, very proud to have these kind of partners. That’s the most important thing. I mean, obviously our goal is to make this brand famous, profitable, but most importantly you’re dealing with motivated guys who are going to push you and who are going to complement you and that you’re going to learn from them and they’re working super hard and are fighting for something. As an athlete, as a competitor, it means so much to be on the same page in that regard. 

SLAM: What does Crosty mean? 

Zaza: It’s related to the freedom, that word. So, everything.

SLAM: I know when you were on the Hawks you had other businesses you ran—a restaurant, a lounge. I assume it’s sort of like being a player—you have times you lose, you have times you win, but you learn from all that and it comes together. Does that play into your involvement with this company?

Zaza: I’ll tell you, the restaurant business is one of the best things that happened to me. I learned so much and I got so much experience, my approach to things changed. I got so much motivation to be more prepared, go into more details, look at things differently. I attended so many business classes, and that still continues. Now I get to really dig into it because there’s a lot of competition out there and patience and a lot of time. I’ve been approaching every single opportunity differently. So far, so good.

SLAM: That’s cool. Last thing, which of your former teammates do you want to get into a pair of Crosty shoes?

Zaza: The shoes fit today’s style—I’ve seen so many athletes wearing the sneakers with suits. I gifted a couple of them to my teammates either with the Warriors or with Detroit. I have been getting a lot of great feedback about it and it’s always good to hear. 

—

Follow Lang Whitaker on Twitter @langwhitaker.

Photos via Crosty and Getty.

The post Zaza Pachulia Talks New Partnership with Shoe Brand Crosty appeared first on SLAM.

Launching in 11 different colorways to signify 11 different cities that are important to No. 11, the Kyrie 6 is his most detailed sneaker yet.

The post Kyrie Irving on the Nike Kyrie 6, Shares Philosophy Behind His Newest Sneaker appeared first on SLAM.

As part of the “Fearless Ones” Collection, this AJ1 pays homage to UNC and Chicago, the sneaker features a patent leather upper with half Carolina Blue, Bulls red, a white midsole and red along the bottoms. The famous “Nike Air” is also featured on the tongue.

The Price Premium (over original retail price) is currently at 118.1% with an average sale price of $354.

Hit StockX to cop your pair.

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Kanye West’s latest iteration of his sneaker has a light lavender on different materials like leather, mesh and cow suede along the upper. A gum bottom sole is featured, too. The Price Premium (over original retail price) is at 57.5% with an average sale price of $342.

Struck out on release day? Hit StockX to grab your pair.

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The latest iteration of the Kanye West-endorsed sneaker features blue along the toe and sides with different variations of grey along the uppers and midsole. Mesh is also featured on the upper along with leather near the lace holes.

Price Premium (over original retail price) is currently at 33% with an average sale price of $379.

Hit StockX to grab your pair.

The post The ‘Teal Blue’ Yeezy Boost 700 is Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

After a 24-year hiatus, this Seattle Supersonics-inspired colorway is being released to the public again. As part of the original “City Pack” in 1995, the Seattle AJX joined Chicago, New York, Sacramento and Orlando as a five-pair lineup that was an ode to each of the aforementioned NBA cities. Sonics forward Kendall Gill rocked these during his final season with the Sonics.

The sneaker features a white leather upper with black details, green accents on the collar as well along the outsoles that also features a yellow Jumpman.

Hit StockX to cop your pair.

The post The ‘Seattle’ Jordan X is Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

La Flame’s latest collab with Jordan Brand features an Olive upper, black along the tongue, red Jumpman and on the pull tab and an icy bottom that makes the VIs that much better. A first for the VIs are the cargo pockets placed on each side of the sneaker.

When it comes to all of Scott’s shoes – “Cactus Jack” AJIV, AJI low and high, and his friends-and-family IVs – where does his latest collab rank?

The VIs price premium (over original retail price) is at 400.0% and has an average sale price of $1,232. To avoid any L’s on release day, hit StockX to grab your pair early.

The post The ‘Travis Scott’ AJVI is Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

Japan-based brand Sacai and the Swoosh have been a great 1-2 punch this whole year. The two new colors are the latest release after the “Black Legend Blue” and “Yellow Red” pairs.

“White Grey” features a white base with different hues of grey along the swooshes and a deconstructing layering tongue to give it that vintage feel.

The “Black Grey” pair has a black base with an overlapping black swoosh. Grey is featured on another swoosh as well as the toe cap and a lining that goes to the upper of the shoe.

Currently, the price premium (over original retail price) for the “White Grey” is 121.4% with an average sale price of $405 while the “White Black” is at price premium of 185.7% with an average sale price of $440.

Hit StockX to cop your pairs.

The post The ‘White Grey’ & ‘Black Grey’ Nike Sacai Blazer is Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

The 33-year-old comedian dresses fairly modestly, wearing mostly monochromatic pieces in his outfits. He admits that he styles everything he wears with a kicks-first mindset. It shows. 

Minhaj’s sneaker rotation on Patriot Act has been elite, featuring the “Union Los Angeles” Air Jordan Is, the Nike Air Fear of God Is and his current favorite, the sacai x Nike LDVs.

“It’s like a little wink,” he says. “We’re going to do this 25-minute deep dive on student loan debt and it’s this super nerdy comedy book report, but I’m also wearing some ‘Union Los Angeles’ Air Jordan Is.”

His passion for sneakers started long before he found fame. On his 10th birthday, Minhaj’s mother gave him a decision to make: pick new sneakers or a new video game console.

“I’m a September baby, so when school starts, it was like a thing: ‘Alright, what’s your shoe gonna be?’” Minhaj says. 

He flexed on his elementary school in the Nike Air Penny Is, and the tradition continued each year. 

“A lot of kids at my school were either wearing Stan Smiths or Vans, and to me, I was always a basketball shoe guy,” he says. “It was my thing. It was my way of standing out.”

His birthday coinciding with the start of school wasn’t the only factor that contributed to Minhaj picking shoes every year. Come each September, he says he was still riding the high of the previous NBA playoffs.

When Minhaj ponders basketball’s most iconic moments, he recalls the sneakers that were gracing the court with just as much enthusiasm. 

The first sneaker he remembers seeing on-court was the “Concord” Air Jordan XIs.  

“I remember seeing them in Eastbay and then seeing them in the ’95 playoffs when Nick Anderson played MJ and being like, ‘What ARE those?’” he says. “They were just so iconic.”

Soon, his yearly birthday kicks weren’t cutting it. Minhaj snagged a job at a grocery store and started saving up so he could add to his collection. His first purchase was the “Pure Money” Air Jordan IVs. 

That same joy Minhaj felt as a kid when he saw Michael Jordan lace up his “Concord” XIs or dropped his own cash on the “Pure Money” IVs is still present today. 

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“The Nike Air Yeezy 2 ‘Red October’ is that one shoe where I remember when it came out I was like, ‘Woah, those are crazy,’” he says. 

The flashy shoe has a resale listing as high as $10,000 on Flight Club, so Minhaj has yet to try it on. 

“I’m at that age now, man, I’m 33, I don’t know if I can pull off every shoe,” Minhaj laughs. “There’s some stuff where it’s like, I’ll let Justin Bieber wear that.” 

It doesn’t take much to convince him that he can rock any pair of shoes, regardless of his age. If anyone has the spotlight to show their personality through sneakers, after all, it’s Minhaj. 

“We shoot the show where I’m standing, I’m not behind a desk,” he says. “You see the shoe in a light—I work the stage, I’m on top of the LEDs. It’s just a cool moment. It’s my way to pay homage to my childhood and have fun.

“The news can be scary and terrifying and divisive but I want to have fun, that’s the whole point of comedy. I try and show my personality through my shoes.”

—

GRAB YOUR COPY OF KICKS 22

Ian Pierno is an Associate Social Media Editor at SLAM. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter.

Photos via Getty.

The post For the ‘Heads: Hasan Minhaj Flexes a Fire Collection of Kicks on ‘Patriot Act’ appeared first on SLAM.

The latest iteration of the IX features red patent leather, a white bottom and black accents along the lace holes and tongue. To put the finishing touches, Jordan Brand also added a glossy coat along the midsole. The latest silhouette joins a lineage of IXs (“Pearl Blue,” “OG” and “Baron”) that have released over the years.

StockX currently has an 18.4% price premium (over original retail price) on the “Gym Red” IX, which totals out to an average price of $241. Currently, the lowest asking price is at $220. Hit StockX to cop your pair.

The post The “Gym Red” AJIX is Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

The latest silhouette features perforated white leather upper with hints of yellow along the upper, swoosh and sole with the popular “Nike Air” branding on the tongue. There are also small details on the sneaker – Mike’s signature along the upper and a barcode on the heel that draws inspiration from the brand’s shipping department in Beaverton, OR.

Hit StockX to cop your pair of the AJI “First Class Flight.”

The post The ‘First Class Flight’ Jordan 1 is Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

“My ‘Bred’ IVs were the shoes that started it all for me,” Josh says, looking back seven years. “I had Jordans before that, but I got lucky when I was in Las Vegas on a raffle. All of my homies that were in school—we were all into Jordans—and then I had to catch up. That was like my starting point to kicks.”

Now, at 17, Josh’s sneaker rotation includes far more than just Jordans. Inside his room are a plethora of boxes stacked from floor to ceiling and numerous pairs alongside the bed—from just about every latest Nike Basketball sneaker in various colorways to designer sneakers to sought after player exclusives. Keeping count isn’t easy. 

“How many pairs of shoes have I ran through is the question,” he says. “With my foot growing and stuff, it’s somewhere in the hundreds—maybe in the 200s.”

Josh’s older brother, Patrick, has had a major influence on his passion for kicks. An avid sneakerhead himself, Patrick starred at Cal from 2006-10 when the Golden Bears were a Jordan Brand-sponsored school. Despite the 14-year age difference, Patrick remembers passing down heat to his little brother and making sure he was always laced up. 

“My brother is a shoe head, too, so he gives me a lot of my stuff,” Josh says. “Most of the stuff tops what I have and I think that his love for shoes just helped me.”

Routine trips to Patrick’s shoe room at his house left Josh mesmerized. He would try on the many sneakers, even if they were far too big, like he did with the “All-Star” LeBron 4s—which he took, despite them being twice his size.  

“That still happens now,” Patrick says, with a laugh. “We go through days where we stop by and clean the crib out…and I come in and find him going through all these different boxes and trying to take stuff.”

At 6-5, Josh continues to grow by the day. An incoming senior at Mayfair (CA), he’s one of the most well-known high school hoopers in the nation. Plus, it’s easy to pinpoint him on the court—the rolled-up shorts, the eccentric aura he carries, his score-first mentality and footwear set him apart.

“Josh is always different,” Halona says. “He’s never wanted to be like anyone else or do what anyone was doing. If you’re doing it, he’s not going to.”

This past season, the five-star shooting guard averaged 25.9 ppg while shooting close to 50 percent from the field. He led Mayfair to a CIF-SS Division 2AA title, their first since 2012, and was given the Wooden Award and named Long Beach Press-Telegram Dream Team POTY. And if there was an award for the best shoes in interscholastic sports, there’s no doubt he’d get it.

“It seems very reminiscent,” says Patrick, who received notoriety from sneaker blogs at Cal. “It’s a new generation…and the power of social media is more global and blows up quick.”

Since the moment this past season began, Josh’s rotation was deep. Some games he’d be seen in popular collabs, like the orange and green pairs of the Nike x UNDFTD Kobe 1 Protros or the “PlayStation” PG2s. And in others, he’d bring out older basketball silhouettes: “Cutting Jade” LeBron 10s or black-and-red KD3s. He even brought out the “Oregon State” AJIX PEs during his sophomore year.

“Coming from a lineage and the flash and persona he brings to the basketball floor, I would say is right in line with him and his personality,” Patrick says.

During a tournament in Las Vegas last season, Josh wore the Air Fear of God 1s, the popular brainchild from Nike and designer Jerry Lorenzo that resells for over $700 on the secondary market.

“I saw ‘Air’ on it and said I was going to hoop in it even if it wasn’t for basketball,” Josh says. “I just hooped in it and posted it. I knew it would make noise, and I like to showcase my shoes to everybody. [Jerry] ended up seeing it and he liked that I was hooping in it. I think I gave it buzz in the basketball world. We talked about the shoes and I ended up getting more.”

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Josh is a big fan of customs, too. He connected with Sierato, one of the biggest customizers in the game, to cook up a Stranger Things-themed sneaker. Josh sent a pair of Kyrie 5s, informing Sierato exactly what he wanted—a red-and-blue theme, the “Friends Don’t Lie” mantra and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown’s character) along the sides—and debuted them earlier this summer.

“I gave him the vision and he cooked it up,” Josh says. “He put Hopper on there and the waffles. I didn’t know he was going to do that. He just killed everything else.”

“These have a special place in my heart,” he continues, looking down at the Kyrie 5s. “I love this shoe so much, and all the games that I played in at Peach Jam, I’ve had a good game.”

So how does Josh Christopher decide which sneakers he’s going to wear on-court?

“I take a look at what I haven’t worn yet and which model was uncomfortable,” he says. “For a long time, I wouldn’t wear hightop shoes because I felt I couldn’t jump high. You wouldn’t see me put this LeBron 10 shoe on right here. I wore a pair of LeBron 14s and I got hung three times, so I vowed to never wear hightop shoes again.”

Josh knows he has to get rid of the superstitions. He admits to allowing himself to believe that a bad game was a result of bad sneakers. 

“Yeah, I gotta get out of that habit,” he says. “A lot of my shoes—if I play bad, I’ll blame the shoe, which is a cool getaway route for me.”

Although he shook his no hightop rule, Josh still has go-to pairs that have never failed him—”Drew League” Hyperdunks and “Oregon” 5s that his good friend Bol Bol gifted him.

On a late afternoon in July, Josh is prepping for his first-ever KICKS photo shoot at his home in Carson, CA. He begins by gathering an array of outfits—a white VLONE tee, two pairs of Palm Angels pants, Don C x Mitchell & Ness Orlando Magic shorts along with purple Not Of This Earth shorts and a burnt orange Most Hated hoodie. Next are his sneakers to rock: “Seoul” Air Max 97s, “Sean Wotherspoon” Air Max 97/1s, “UNC” Off-White Jordan Is and “All Hallows’ Eve” Off-White Blazers.  

“Nobody has SLAM photo shoots like I do,” he says, while standing on the roof of his home.

Josh begins posing throughout the backyard. As the sun sets, he gets ready for one last spot on the top of his house while there’s still good lighting. He goes through a whole wardrobe change as he moves to his living room. We hand him flash cards to test his knowledge on some iconic basketball kicks over the last three decades while he’s surrounded by some of his favorite sneakers from his own collection.

Halona, who’s watching from the couch, didn’t understand her son’s sneaker obsession at first. 

“I’m used to it now, but my question is always the same—another pair?” she says. “You only have two feet. I’m always concerned with him picking them up and getting them out of my way so I’m not tripping over his 14s. It’s what he likes.”

And she’s opinionated when it comes to the Balenciaga Triple S, a bulky-looking sneaker that released in 2017 that she deems “very outrageous.” But she is a fan of two specific pairs in Josh’s rotation.

“I really enjoy the Fear of Gods,” she says. “I love how they look on his feet and the new Stranger Things [Kyries] are really cool.”

When it comes to kicks-on-court competition, there are a select few Josh considers as potential runners-up. He throws Caleb Love, Shaqir O’Neal, Jalen Green and Scottie Barnes in the conversation, but acknowledges that he’s in a league of his own.

“It’s a tough competition with me,” he says with a smile. “It’s a couple guys that do their thing.”

As the soon-to-be senior prepares for his final year of high school, he’ll continue to set the bar when it comes to hardwood heat, and hopefully acquire a pair he’s been trying to track down for some time now.

“I want some “Aunt Pearl” KD4s—the all-pink ones,” he says. “I think I can get those.”

—

GRAB YOUR COPY OF KICKS 22

Drew Ruiz is an Associate Editor for SLAM. Follow him on Twitter at @DrewRuiz90. 

Portraits by Gizelle Hernandez.

The post Turn It Up To 11: A Look at Josh Christopher’s Ridiculous Kicks Collection 💧 appeared first on SLAM.

Beginning on September 25 at 12 p.m. EDT, use promo code “WIN350” when purchasing any item at $100 or more on StockX. This applies to purchases in ANY category with a minimum purchase price (before shipping) of $100. The promotion ends September 27 at 12 p.m. EDT.

Four winners (two in US; two in EU) will be selected on October 4, 2019 and get one pair of the aforementioned Yeezy Boost 350 V2s in their choice of size. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, so click here for more info.

The post StockX Offers ‘Buy to Win’ Promotion for Two Pairs of Yeezy Boost 350 V2s appeared first on SLAM.

So over dinner in Portland, OR, one night, with an audience that included his mother Nicole and several members of the adidas team, Donovan Mitchell told that story. 

He spoke of a childhood filled with adversity, although some of it only became known to him later on. Nicole worked tirelessly to pay bills and keep food on the table, hiding many of the family’s obstacles from her kids. Despite the hardship, she drove Donovan to every AAU tournament and fostered his passion for the game. 

He described a dream that developed early on, but that no one truly believed was attainable. Not even Nicole. At times, not even himself. 

He reminisced on the many people who assured him he couldn’t do this or that or wouldn’t make it as far as he has. And the few instances when, though brief, he thought the same thing.

Overall, however, the 23-year-old Mitchell explained how he overcame the barriers and cynicism, how he persevered to make it to this moment, on the brink of releasing his own signature sneaker.

Rashad Williams, the Senior Director of Footwear for adidas Basketball, listened intently to Donovan’s words. Each chapter of his journey had a similar theme. There was the time Mitchell broke his wrist playing baseball and missed a crucial summer of basketball for recruitment, only to return and start killing everyone on the court and move up the rankings. Or when, amid a difficult freshman season at Louisville, he would break down in his dorm room and even contemplated quitting the sport he loved, only to spend late nights in the gym honing his craft.

All the while, there was the constant chatter about him on social media and the internet, asserting he simply wasn’t good enough to achieve his ultimate goal. 

It was Determination Over Negativity (D.O.N.) that got him to the NBA, never giving up on his dream even when doubt engulfed it. Doubt from everyone.

By the end of that dinner, the group had established a good foundation for Mitchell’s signature. The message would be right in the name. The D.O.N. Issue #1.

“Determination Over Negativity is a belief that anything is possible no matter who you are or where you come from,” said Mitchell, via press release. “I wanted this sneaker to be a symbol of that—for the kid who believes they can do anything.”

Then, of course, there was the design. It was established early on in the process that the sneaker would incorporate Donovan’s nickname: Spida. A former teammate’s dad came up with it when Mitchell was a kid and it caught on. 

“You start to look at his game and how that actually correlates with his nickname,” says Williams. “His style of play, how that correlates with the attributes of a spider.” 

Mitchell’s tremendous wingspan (6-10) allows him to be disruptive in passing lanes and reach for rebounds (sometimes absurd put-backs) among the trees. He glides effortlessly to the basket and soars through the air with ease, as if swinging between buildings like Spider-Man.

Partnering with Marvel, adidas went on to announce four superhero colorways of Mitchell’s sneaker. The main one (“The Amazing Spider-Man”) is red, white and blue and features web stitching on the toe box and tongue. There’s a “Symbiote Spider-Man” colorway (also known as “Venom”), which is pink, black, white and silver with teeth patterns across the midsole. The “Steal Spider-Man” has glow in the dark details and there’s the red and gold “Iron Spider” as well.

Throughout Mitchell’s incredible rise in Utah, which has included a Slam Dunk Contest title, a pair of trips to the playoffs and two-year averages of 22.1 points, 3.9 assists and 3.9 rebounds, the young guard has had Dame 4s and the Pro Bounce 2018 Low on his feet. The Dame 4 helped serve as a base for the D.O.N. Issue #1. 

“The main two areas Donovan wanted to focus on were a nice, soft upper—similar to what he wore in the Dame 4—and then having some great traction, based off his game,” says Williams. “He prides himself on being a two-way player and those are the first two areas we focused on.” 

Mitchell was heavily involved in the design process. Each new idea was brought to him for approval or rejection. Numbers printed along the side reflect his standing and running vertical leaps at the NBA Combine. Additional “coding” hidden on the shoe pinpoints the key locations along Mitchell’s journey, including Brewster Academy, where he finished his high school career.

One of his specific requests was that the toe be soft and pliable to enhance comfort. He also wanted Bounce foam in the midsole, another quality of the Dame 4, to support his athleticism. Other elements were added to ensure the sneaker was compatible to Mitchell’s high-flying style. 

“Donovan is a special type of basketball player who exerts extreme forces on his footwear when moving during a game,” says Jimi Taylor, Senior Footwear Designer for adidas Basketball. “In particular, he generates peak force when he jumps and lands by angling his feet to side propel himself upward. We obsessed over this detail in his game and built a shoe that has a wide stable base for launching and landing with layered reinforcement in the forefoot to provide lateral stability without limiting movement.”

“The shoe really focuses on Don’s style of play,” Williams adds. “He starts and stops very hard and explodes at a tremendous force.” 

As Donovan has quickly assumed a go-to role on the Jazz, a team with its sights set on a deep postseason run, the dynamics of the silhouette had to change. According to Taylor, it was built for the long haul.

“One of the things that struck us immediately in the design team was the amount of work that Donovan was doing for his team so early in his career,” he says. “With the major minutes and responsibility he was carrying, we worked to create a shoe that was as comfortable as possible, to allow Donovan to push as hard as possible all season long and into the playoffs. We did this by creating a really comfortable tongue and collar with focused zones of extra padding. We also gave him a really plush Bounce tooling that would help absorb the beating his legs were taking but without sacrificing his natural feel for the court.”

Beyond its performance and functionality, it was important to Mitchell that the sneaker be accessible. He made that very clear to Rashad, Jimi and the rest of the team working on it. It needed to be affordable.

Growing up, Mitchell often lacked the money to buy the pairs he desperately coveted. That stuck with him over the years. With a retail price of $100, far cheaper than most options on the market, the D.O.N. Issue #1 will hopefully not present that problem.

When he stops to consider where he’s at now, how far he’s come and what he’s managed to accomplish, Mitchell is still taken aback. He’s played merely two seasons in the NBA and already made a big enough splash to warrant a signature sneaker. On most nights, he takes the floor with the same guys he idolized, people he used to watch on TV and read about in magazines.

The experience of creating something for individuals who now look up to him was surreal for Mitchell. 

“He constantly says he can’t believe it,” Williams explains, when asked about Donovan’s reaction to the sneaker. “He’s very excited, that’s one thing I love about Don. Anytime I’m with him, he gives off a tremendous amount of energy. And you feel that energy and you feel that authenticity. Him having a signature shoe—anytime you hear him talk about it or you see him with it, that authenticity, that excitement, is always there.

“The hope is to inspire the next generation—men, women, boys and girls,” he continues. “Don would tell you that if you have a dream, you should chase after it. That’s really where [the sneaker] came from. He really just wants to inspire the next generation.”

—

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Alex Squadron is an Associate Editor at SLAM. Follow him on Twitter @asquad510.

Photos via adidas and Getty Images.

The post AMAZING SPIDA MAN: Behind the Design of Donovan Mitchell’s Signature Sneaker appeared first on SLAM.

Similar to the “Cloud White” colorway, which released earlier this month, the “Citrin” is perfect for fall – tan vibes, a transluscent sole with a gum bottom that wraps from the heel to the toe to add the finishing touches.

Lace up for fall and grab the “Citrin” Yeezy Boost 350 V2, now available on StockX.

The post The ‘Citrin’ Yeezy Boost 350 V2 is Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

The second iteration of Kanye West’s 350 line features hues powder blue intertwined with white mesh with a transluscent sole. These released earlier this month with a $220 retail tag.

Looking to add another V2 to your collection? Hit StockX and cop the “Cloud White” Yeezy Boost 350 V2.

The post The ‘Cloud White’ Yeezy Boost 350 V2 is Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

When you think of iconic AJXII colorways, it’s hard not to put the “Flu Game” atop that list. Originally released in 1997, the AJXII was the first Jordan sneaker to have Zoom Air and complemented the Bulls’ red uniforms perfectly – black premium leather upper with a pebbled red – that drew attention every time Mike wore them on-court.

Over the years, Jordan Brand retroed these three times (2003, 2009 and 2016) since ’97. Now, Jumpman continues to pay homage to its root with the “Game Royal” colorway: same black upper and a blue suede (!) bottom, which makes it difficult for sneakerheads to not call these the “Blu Games.”

Regardless of what you want to call them, grab the “Game Royal” AJXII on StockX now.

The post The “Game Royal” AJXII is Now Live on StockX appeared first on SLAM.

“We had the blueprint in mind for the 17 and we started from the ground up on everything, whether that was the construction of the knit or the way we could protect him underfoot with Air bags,” Jason Petrie, the lead designer of the LeBron line, says. “The silhouette was a way to reset the mark for LeBron and futuristically explore how we could help his game.”

The LeBron 17 is built off a huge air unit in the heel, the highest-volume Max Air unit in a pair of the King’s kicks to date. 

“If you look at the evolution of LeBron’s line, you’ll see how he loves Max Air,” Petrie says. “And we felt like the volume of Air in the 17 was the next solution in providing the stabilization and support he needs.”

Ever since Petrie took over the line with the 7, James has loved the inclusion of Air units. The 7, the 8, the 9, the 10, the 15 and the 16 all featured major Air units. That trend continues with the 17. 

Completing that heel Air is the inclusion of two Air Zoom pods in the forefoot. 

The foundation of the 17 is all about dunking. For real. 

“The way LeBron sees it, he wants to feel confident from the ground up,” Petrie says. “He doesn’t need help jumping. He wants to feel secure on the way down.”

Sitting above the Air units in a brand new upper technology called Knitposite. It’s built on the uppers introduced in the 15 and the 16, both of which used Battleknit, a super-strong knit material that also was stretchy. Knitposite is the strongest knit yet, made by taking Flyknit and using heat and pressure on the yarn. 

“We wanted to blend the knit on the 15 and the strength of the Battleknit on the 16,” Petrie says. “The result is amazing. Once the heat is applied to the knitting process, you get this jewel-like armored exoskeleton that’s stuffed with these yarns.”

The 17 will be on-foot for LeBron’s second season with the Lakers. One of the first three colorways introduced is all about the purple and gold. They’ve got the King’s name in the Lakers’ font on the insole.

The “Future Air” and the “Man in the Arena” colorways round out the introductory trio.

The post The Nike LeBron 17 is Officially Unveiled appeared first on SLAM.

“It was something I was thinking about, being creative and doing things different than other guys,” Prince tells KICKS.

While most players don’t put that much thought into their footwear, Prince was ready for his moment as a sneaker free agent. His contract with adidas had expired right before the 2018-19 season began. By that time, he wasn’t a stranger to hooping in rare kicks. He wore T-Mac 5s, T-Mac 3s and even two different pairs of Kobe’s first adidas signatures when he was still with the Three Stripes.

He had real heaters in 2018-19, though. He played in the “Fairfax” LeBron Zoom Soldier 3. He played in the “OVO” Air Jordan VIII. He played in the “Stepover” Reebok Answer IV. He really played in Nike 20-5-5s, a silhouette that was cooked up after LeBron’s legendary rookie year and hasn’t been retro’d yet. They’re extremely rare. 

“To be honest, I wasn’t really trying to compete with PJ [Tucker] or Trezz [Harrell]. Those guys, it’s cool,” Prince says. “But they’d rather spend a whole bunch of money doing that. It’s not even about that for me. I really don’t care about having the most expensive shoe on. It’s like, literally, whatever I feel like wearing that day or that game, it’s just what I’m gonna wear. I’m not basing it off whether somebody’s gonna post it. I know they’re gonna catch it, so it’s just gonna be what I like.”

He had a really good season, too. Though he had to overcome a left ankle injury that kept him out of over 20 games, he showed major improvement on offense. He ran pick-and-rolls better than the year before and drilled catch-and-shoot threes, hitting almost 40 percent from distance.

The Hawks traded him to the Nets in early June and he’s already thinking about his footwork for Brooklyn.

“Everybody knows my man is KD,” Prince says about his new teammate, Kevin Durant, who is now 12 signature sneakers in with Nike. “So I’m gonna cook up a lot of iDs with him. I’ll probably be wearing a lot of the things he would be wearing if he was playing.

“I’ll probably be more spontaneous with it this year. I’ll probably switch up between a lot of old Kobes and old KDs. Bron, he’ll get a taste a little bit this year, but you know how it is. When you’re teammates with the other best player in the world, you gotta tame that a little bit,” he adds with a laugh.

And speaking of Brons, the “Equality” 15s kind of fell into Prince’s lap at the perfect time.

“I was actually in Cleveland at the time,” the 25-year-old says. “My boy, he has a consignment store called Restock. So I walked in there and he actually wears my size. [The ‘Equality’ 15s] were just right there in the case. I asked how much they were. They were a good little price, enough to where I could get them at that moment. So I copped them right then and there and wore them that night.”

Prince says it’s become normal for him to hit up stores on the road.

“If we have five games on the road then I’ll bring, honestly, 10 to 20 pairs,” he says. “I may switch at halftime, I may not. Just depends on the vibe. I may go to a city with 12 pairs of shoes and then go to a shoe store and cop three pairs and end up wearing those three.”

With New York as his new home, Prince isn’t done flexing. Imagine what he’ll be able to find at all the sneaker stores in Gotham.

—

GRAB YOUR COPY OF KICKS 22

Max Resetar is an Associate Editor at SLAM. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

Photos via Getty.

The post FRESH PRINCE: A Look at Taurean Prince’s Fire Collection of Kicks appeared first on SLAM.

Taurasi had her own kicks back in 2006. The Nike Shox DT came and went quickly and it’s already, unfortunately, been forgotten. It was a funky-looking silhouette built on Nike’s patented Shox technology. The cushioning was mixed with Zoom Air and it trailed up to a big overlay that covered the midfoot and eventually wrapped around the collar. Taurasi only played in them for one season. She’s been playing in LeBron PEs ever since.

Taurasi, a three-time WNBA champ and four-time Olympic gold medalist, is the last woman sponsored by Nike to get a signature sneaker. The last woman to get a signature in the WNBA is Parker, who has two WNBA MVP trophies, two gold medals and a WNBA title. She’s consistently been laced in the latest adidas options ever since the early 2000s and adidas hooked her up with three of her own pairs, the last of which was in 2012 when the Ace3 came out.

It’s a stark, stark contrast from when women’s basketball exploded into the mainstream in the mid-’90s. Chamique Holdsclaw, Dawn Staley, Lisa Leslie, Cynthia Cooper, Rebecca Lobo and Nicki McCray were all given their own kicks by Nike, adidas, Reebok and Fila back in the day.

And then there was Sheryl Swoopes, a pioneer in basketball sneakers. Nike made seven different signature sneakers for Swoopes and she wore them as she was winning four consecutive WNBA titles with the Houston Comets and three Olympic gold medals. The impact of the first Air Swoopes still moves the Hall of Famer.

“I remember going to Portland, walking in the room and just seeing all of the stuff,” Swoopes told SLAM at the 2019 WNBA Draft about the first time she saw her signature sneaker. “It seemed so surreal to me at the moment. To walk in and, not only see any shoe, but to see my shoe, with my name on it, and to know that there were gonna be little girls out there, and hopefully little boys too, that have an opportunity to wear a women’s basketball shoe… I love Michael Jordan, but you don’t have to go and buy the Air Jordans anymore. You can go and buy the Air Swoopes. Even today, to say that, I’m like, ‘Wow that really did happen.’ I still get emotional to this day when I think about it.”

But there hasn’t been another player able to feel that type of emotion in nearly 10 years. Even as the talent level has soared across the W and players have taken strong stances against political and racial injustices, developing rock-solid personal brands, no company has stepped up with a sneaker.

The most that the brands do is give a select few players their own team-specific colorways. Parker is always playing in purple and gold kicks, Bird has been given the reigns to the Kyrie line and Taurasi has gotten Phoenix Mercury-themed LeBrons ever since Nike did away with her sneaker. Some of the league’s best young players get featured in marketing campaigns by Nike and adidas, where the spotlight shines on them briefly. But it’s not enough for Breanna Stewart and Nneka Ogwumike, two former MVPs, to get a couple of seconds of airtime in a branded Instagram video that also shows men with their own kicks.

If the high level of skill and the social awareness weren’t enough, the W is filled with huge sneakerheads, now more than ever. There will be old pairs of Kobes, the newest adidas and a wild custom pair on any given night during the summertime. Sneakers matter to them and to their fans.

“I remember in middle school I had Cynthia Cooper’s sneaker,” the W’s Sneaker Queen, Tamera Young, says. “Our team, actually, had it. It’s something for the kids as well that looks up to us. If you had WNBA players that have sneakers, it’s something that little girls could look up to.”

“It would just be an inspiration to young players to be able to wear shoes of their favorite women’s player,” the Chicago Sky’s Diamond DeShields says. “Visibility is key. I believe this would help promote that and ultimately contribute to the common goal of growing the league as a whole.”

The 24-year-old DeShields debuted the “Chicago” Air Fear of God 1 recently, a move co-signed by the sneaker’s designer, Jerry Lorenzo. He personally thanked DeShields in an Instagram post that went out to his one million-plus followers.

“It’s all a part of the evolution of the sport,” DeShields says about a woman having her own sneaker. “At what point is it gonna become normalized for women to share the same platform and opportunities as men? ‘Never’ won’t last in regard to this question so why not now?”

Like DeShields, a few women have been able to show off high-profile pairs. The Aces have a heavy-hitting duo in Wilson and Kayla McBride, both in terms of bucket-getting and sneaker-wearing. Wilson is the first WNBA player to get player exclusive Adapt BB colorways. She first rocked her personal colorway of the auto-lacing sneaker at NBA All-Star Weekend and then went on to debut the “Air MAG” Adapt BBs. And McBride was the first to launch the “NASA 50” colorway of the PG3. Tina Charles and Odyssey Sims got to break out the “SpongeBob” and “Patrick” Kyrie 5s. And the first player to wear the Nike Freak 1 on-court wasn’t Giannis Antetokounmpo or one of his brothers—it was Dallas Wings rookie Arike Ogunbowale.

“We’re at a time where we deserve our own signature shoe,” Wilson says. “It would help the WNBA’s evolution because that’s just a huge step of getting us out there as players. That is a big step. Of course, my favorite Dawn Staley and Sheryl Swoopes, they had their shoes but we need to bring that back. It brings a lot more coverage to our game and notice to our game. That’ll just help our game evolve.

Go down the line and look at the rest of the league and you’ll find ‘heads on every team, players that not only mess with sneakers but that can also truly hoop. Jewell Loyd, Elena Delle Donne, Chiney Ogwumike, Kia Nurse and Seimone Augustus are a few of the best players in the WNBA and a few of its biggest sneakerheads too.

Augustus, a future Hall of Famer that has four rings with the Minnesota Lynx, has been wearing customs for the last two seasons thanks to Salvatore Marcum. Marcum runs Mpls Customs and, in addition to working with Augustus, has also worked with Collin Sexton, Langston Galloway, Josh Okogie and a handful of NFL players.

“These women work harder than anyone I know,” Marcum says. “The passion is there, the love for the sport is there and the signature shoes would be a great step in the right direction for them as a whole to reach the publicity they deserve.

“Seimone’s a player I personally look up to,” Marcum continues. “We’ve done a lot of shoes together to bring awareness to things, such as the ‘Care Bear’ shoes for Pride Month and the native shoes for Native American Heritage Night.”

As Marcum notes, Augustus is one of the players that uses her platform to highlight what’s most important on a personal level. Los Angeles Sparks rookie Marina Mabrey recently did that too, when she used her platform to go after the incessant trolls that constantly leave sexist comments on social media. Mabrey rolled up to a game wearing a shirt with an image of a basketball court that read, “This is my Kitchen.”

“Sneakers are a symbol of a favorite player no different than a jersey,” Mabrey, a collegiate national champion at Notre Dame, says. “The more involved the fans are, the better the league will be. The evolution of basketball begins with participation of the fans. When young girls express their love of the game, we want them to want to be WNBA players.”

Mabrey agrees that a WNBA player with a signature sneaker would help to grow the women’s game and showcase all the skill that doesn’t get highlighted enough. DeShields seconds that.

“It would just help create more iconic players in the league,” DeShields says. “The biggest stars of the NBA have their own shoe, so I think creating that hierarchy within the W would only elevate the popularity of the game as a whole.”

It would also celebrate this group of the world’s best basketball players. It would be definitive recognition of the work they’ve put in and the respect they deserve. In basketball, the sneaker is a status symbol, a marker of the elite. It doesn’t get more elite in women’s basketball than the WNBA.

“It’s super important for us, as women, to have a signature shoe,” the Phoenix Mercury’s Brittney Griner says. Griner’s list of accomplishments runs deep. She’s got a WNBA title, an Olympic gold medal and two DPOY trophies. Plus, when she was drafted in 2013 as the No. 1 overall pick, she was signed by Nike as part of a trio with Elena Delle Donne and Skylar Diggins. It was a big signing at the time but all Griner has to show for it is a couple of PEs through the years.

“With our league being around 20-plus years now and all the hype behind us, women’s sports across the board, from Serena [Williams] in tennis to Megan [Rapinoe] kicking ass at soccer, it’s really time,” she continues. “Everybody always asks, ‘Where’s the shoes?’ It’s not just girls asking. Guys are asking. It’s time to test the waters. Not a shoe where we already had it and we throw a name on it. Actually sit down with the player, let them design the whole shoe and get it out there. Across the board, all brands, everybody. Everybody needs to start doing it. It’s time.”

—

Max Resetar is an Associate Editor at SLAM. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Additional reporting by Camille Buxeda.

The post No More Waiting: Give the WNBA Its Own Signature Sneakers appeared first on SLAM.

Bibby’s been part of the Jordan Brand family ever since he got drafted by the Vancouver Grizzlies with the second overall pick in the 1998 Draft. He was one of the League’s illest point guards during his 14-year career. He dashed around the court as a threat at the rim, an early adopter of the three-point shot and a composed floor general. He was the leader of the Kings during their title-contending runs in the early 2000s. He played ball without fear, always ready to step up in the clutch. He was the foundation of a team that played every game with an unstoppable intensity.

Bibby’s in-game accomplishments speak for themselves. He had averages of 15 points and 5 assists throughout his time with the Grizzlies, Kings, Hawks, Wizards, Heat and Knicks. Look a little deeper and you’ll see that all of the crazy moments in his career happened while he was wearing wild Air Jordan colorways. You’ll see that Bibby’s sneaker resume is A1.  

He played in the you-can’t-get-these Js. The joints that featured his name, his number or “TD,” which you’ll read about in a moment. His kicks weren’t getting released. Nah, his kicks were player exclusives.

The Jordan Brand player exclusive has been rare air ever since the jump. They are the special editions made specifically for a Jordan-sponsored athlete, decorated in team colors and adorned with at least one personal shout out. And ever since Bibby, Ray Allen, Michael Finley, Derek Anderson, Vin Baker and Eddie Jones started showing out in PEs, sneakerheads all over have been fiending for them.

But the PE has remained guarded, with the exception of leaked photos and on-court appearances. And the creation process of the PE has been even more difficult to find out about.

That’s why Bibby, a certified sneaker legend, is searching through his library of sneakers. He’s going to tell us how a Jordan Brand player exclusive gets made and let us check out a handful of Js that haven’t been properly introduced before.

He brings out versions from his time with the Kings and with the Hawks and with Team USA, while the majority of them stay in the back. It would take forever to go through them all and we don’t have that much time. There are a couple of pairs that he picks up and stares at. He can break into a story about any of them, at any moment. Or he can go into detail about hidden rooms at the Nike campus with Js stacked to the ceiling. Or he can chop it up about the early Team Js.

So we sit down with Mike Bibby, a Jordan OG, to talk. 

SLAM: How does a PE get created?

Mike Bibby: When I was playing, they would mail you, like, five, six shoes in different colorways. You’d pick two or three colors that you liked and they would get it done. They usually pick the shoe of what you’re going to wear and then they’ll send you the colorways of what you could pick from.

SLAM: How did you choose between having “Bibby” on some of them and “TD” on others?

MB: I didn’t really have a nickname so I just told them put my name and just put the TD. When they send it to you, it would either be “Bibby” on the side or “TD” on the tongue.

SLAM: And for the people that don’t know, what is TD?

MB: Oh, Team Dime? It’s just family members and friends that grew up together. Just a close-knit family.

SLAM: How involved were you in the design process?

MB: They would pick the shoes and the colors. You have, like, six, eight colors to choose from. Little things to switch here and there and you picked which ones you wanted and they were done.

SLAM: You were one of the first people to get Jordan Lows. How did that happen?

MB: I just always felt, like, can you make them in lows? And if you ask questions, it’s either yes or no. They said yes. I’d rather wear lowtops than hightops anyway. A lot of the Jordans were hightops or mids. I was more comfortable playing with lowtops.

SLAM: What was your first PE?

MB: It was probably the Masterpiece. That was probably the first shoe they made in the [Grizzlies] color.

SLAM: What’s going through your head as you hold those Masterpieces in your hand?

MB: I don’t even know how I found these… I found them in my closet one day. It’s the only pair I have. I think I have two Grizzlies shoes left and I’m going to hold on to these as long as I can.

SLAM: How involved were you in making these into a reality?

MB: They sent them to me. [Laughs] When I got them in the mail, that’s when I knew I had them. They made a pair of these and they made a pair of black/gray ones. They’re Jumpmans. Back then it was mostly Jumpmans that they put us in. Towards the later part of the years they started giving us more retros. But this is probably the first shoe they made specifically with my colors.

SLAM: Which of these PEs means the most to you?

MB: These [“Olympic” Air Jordan XII Lows] are probably the ones that I don’t have that many of. The “Olympic” colors. We were only there for a couple weeks trying to qualify for the Olympics. They made these and the XVIIs for me.

SLAM: What do you remember about MJ when you were a kid and his impact off the court?

MB: I was a little bit older then but every kid wanted a pair of Jordans. The best to ever play the game. Having a pair meant the most to any kid. Coming into the League and being asked to wear it coming out, I couldn’t turn it down. There was no way he was going to be turned down because you have unlimited Jordans. And I never had them.

SLAM: So how did you link up with Jordan Brand?

MB: We had the same agent back then, David Falk, and he asked me, “Would you want to wear Jordans?” I said, “Hell yeah.” It wasn’t even a question. It was over with. They had six of us, I think, when they first started. I remember walking past Foot Locker and being on one of those pictures. I was thankful for it.

SLAM: What else do you remember about that Foot Locker moment?

MB: It’s funny. I was 20 years old and I’m walking in the mall and it’s like, “There I am.” It’s just surreal.

SLAM: You had a lot of success really quickly. Was that your first, Yo, this is real moment?

MB: I think when I first met my agent, that was the first time. Because back then he was the biggest agent out and he had Michael Jordan and I knew stuff was about to get real when I met with him to be my agent. I didn’t meet with any other agent. I knew it was going to go uphill from there.

SLAM: With that in mind, when did you realize that MJ’s legacy was way bigger than basketball?

MB: I don’t know if I understood it when I was younger. You don’t get it until you look back on it now. But the stuff that he’s brought out and the way people go crazy for his shoes is crazy. And as a kid growing up, it’s the best sneaker out.

SLAM: What do you remember about the first time you met him?

MB: He was tough. [Laughs] I remember we were in a meeting, all the guys, Carmelo, CP, and all the other guys were at dinner. He went around the table and ripped everybody. I was just sitting there like, “Damn, what is he going to say about me?” It was fun just to be there, be in his presence, be around the best basketball player to ever play the game.

SLAM: What did he say about you?

MB: I don’t even remember. He said something about everybody. I was like, “Damn, he ain’t really say nothing bad about me.” I was the quiet one back then so I think I was okay.

SLAM: What about the feeling of seeing your name on a sneaker? How do you describe the feeling of seeing your name on a Jordan?

MB: I mean, it was good. [Laughs] People in the locker room would come over and check them out. That was a big thing, just seeing the different colors and knowing that these won’t be in stores. It’s different from nowadays. A lot of guys are wearing shoes that come out in stores. I don’t know if it’s marketing or what but that was the biggest thing—knowing that no one else would have these shoes that I’m wearing.

SLAM: A big trend these days is putting your favorite movie or musician on your sneakers. What type of artwork would you throw on a custom colorway?

MB: I definitely would’ve thrown Scooby-Doo on there and probably Madden. We’ve been playing Madden for over 20 years. We have a draft every year. So it’d be Madden and Scooby-Doo. Scooby-Doo is my favorite. I love Scooby-Doo.

SLAM: Not only are you a Jordan Brand OG, but you and your Arizona Wildcats teammates also wore the Pennys before Penny did. How did you guys get to debut the Foamposite One back in 1997?

MB:  Eric Lautenbach came to our team. It was the first year we were there and he came and sat everybody down and said, “I got a shoe that no one has seen yet. It’s not your team color.” Back then you matched your shoe with your uniform. It’s not like nowadays where everybody wears a different color just to be different.

“It’s not going to match your uniform. It’s up to you guys if you guys want to wear it.” I said, “Hell yeah, I’m wearing them.” A few guys wore them. I think Jason Terry wore them, I think Quynn Tebbs wore them, a few guys that sat on the bench wore them.

But that was it, really. He got a shoe that’s not our color, hasn’t come out, no one has seen it yet. “It’s up to you guys if you want to wear them.” You know I wasn’t turning that down.

Max Resetar is an Associate Editor at SLAM. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Photos by Steve Craft.

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