- I'm Max Resetar from SLAM Magazine.
And today, we'll be looking at some of our favorite sneakers
ever worn in the NBA court.
Michael Jordan.
So, the photos you're looking at here
are from May 7th, 1995,
it's the first time that MJ ever wore
the 11 on-court and the Concord colorway of course.
MJ was not supposed to wear this shoe in this game.
Tinker Hatfield is a legendary sneaker designer,
gave him a few samples to look at.
This is right after he came back from baseball.
He played in 17 regular season NBA games
to finish out the '95 season.
Then in the second round of playoffs,
he told Tinker yo, I'm going to wear these shoes,
there's nothing you can do to stop me.
But Tinker was saying, no, they don't come out to November,
they're not ready yet.
And then he wears them and boom, lightning, bottle.
Every cliche you could think of.
Shoe takes off like crazy.
He goes on to wear the Concords the entire season,
they win 72 games.
In the playoffs, he's wearing the Bred 11's,
the black and red, that's a combination.
They win their fourth championship on Father's Day.
He cries hysterically,
he misses his late father.
He's rolling around on the floor
and he's wearing the Bred 11's in that moment.
And then there's a famous photo of him in the locker room
after he was crying.
The biggest smile, he looks like the Joker,
he's smoking a cigar,
he's got the championship hat on.
He's still wearing his jersey
and his feet are kicked up on the table.
And you just see the outsole of the Bred 11's.
And it's a masterpiece.
It's the best of the best.
So, you put all that together
and it all equals into hands down,
no argument, no competition,
the best basketball sneaker ever made.
There's nothing that even comes close.
Technology, yes.
Colorways, yes.
History, yes.
By far the best.
Patent leather, first time we'd ever seen that
on a basketball sneaker.
Carbon fiber, first time we'd seen that
in a basketball sneaker.
Laces inspired by basketball net.
Mesh upper, first time we've seen that.
This is his best shoe and that says a lot
because MJ has the best signature sneaker line of all time.
Any sport, any basketball player.
LeBron James.
This was a game in December of 2017
and year 15 for LeBron.
This was his last season with the Cavs.
This was really the first moment that we knew
how special the LeBron 15 would go down to be
in sneaker history, in LeBron's sneaker history.
But this moment right here happened in Washington D.C.
and this was LeBron.
Honestly, just understanding the magnitude
of being LeBron James and the power that his voice
and his actions carried.
He wore one white shoe and one black shoe.
They each had equality plastered on the side of them.
And when you zoom in on photos of these sneakers,
Nike put the word equality
in almost as many languages as they could find.
On the white shoe, they're done up in white
and on the black shoe, those words are done off in black.
So, it's tough to see when you look far away.
And this is, of course, LeBron's history
with the White House is well-documented by now.
He had a few tweets going back and forth.
So, this was LeBron's way of...
He wasn't trying to be rude to anyone.
He was just trying to say we're all in this together.
Let's be in this together
and let's find a way to move forward, black or white.
It doesn't matter the color of your skin,
let's just find a way to move forward.
This shoe would go on to be super limited release.
They released 400 pairs of each colorway
and then proceeds were then donated
to the Smithsonian after that.
This was just a way to propel the message
that LeBron started with these Equality 15's.
Kobe Bryant.
Man, Kobe's history in the game of basketball
deserves a book, a movie, 10 of these videos.
It deserves way more than this little moment,
but if we could pay tribute
to Kobe's innovative mind right here,
even beyond the Grinch 6's that we're looking at.
Because everything that Kobe did
was in a mission to A, get better and B, to win.
He was heavily, heavily involved
in his signature line with Nike.
And part of the reason for that is the things that Adidas
didn't end very well with him with Kobe
because they didn't really take his input.
So, with Nike and Eric Avar,
who was a legendary sneaker designer
who worked on a bunch of these Kobe's.
Kobe was involved down to the millimeter.
He would talk about the airbag,
he would talk about the inflation on the airbag,
he would talk about uppers.
He would talk about shoelaces, collar heights, heel cups.
He would talk about everything.
He would talk about TPU and EVA foams.
He knew everything down to the exact millimeter.
So before we even talk about this Kobe 6 right here,
we have to talk about the Kobe 4
because the Kobe 4 was the first Nike
in modern Nike history to be a low top basketball shoe.
But, the Kobe 6 right here
is an evolution of a Kobe 4 and 5,
which were both low tops.
Kobe 4, depending on who you ask,
it might be the best Kobe of all time.
Kobe 5 then built upon that.
And with this Kobe 6, which is in my opinion,
the best Kobe of all time
and we're looking at, in my opinion,
the best colorway of all time, the Grinch.
The Kobe 6 took what those two shoes did
and it elevated it with storytelling.
So, you still had a low top sneaker,
you still had the heel support
that was instrumental in preventing ankles sprains
because the whole thing that people were always afraid of
was if you wear low top basketball shoes,
you'll sprain your ankle wah, wah, wah,
which isn't the case.
Avar and the team,
they found that if you put the right heel lockdown
in a basketball shoe, your ankle will be stable.
So, that was the secret formula.
And now once you had that,
they added a plastic layer on top of the Kobe 6,
on the upper of the Kobe 6, to mimic snakeskin.
And this goes back to the Black Mamba.
This goes back to Kobe being Kobe
and winning and being relentless,
and never giving up and having no fear.
So, they put that type of mentality,
the Mamba Mentality, on the Kobe 6 here.
And its debut happened on Christmas day
against the Heat with his Grinch colorway.
And again, this goes back to Nike using these big moments,
Christmas day games, all-star games,
the Olympics, final, playoffs,
they use these big moments to make statements for footwear.
And this was a huge statement.
There was no way this colorway matched Lakers uniforms,
but the NBA let Kobe run with it
and to this day, the Kobe 6 in this Grinch colorway
is an extremely elusive shoe, extremely sought after,
extremely well respected.
And it is because not only of its amazing design,
but it really is representation of Kobe's mentality.
And you know, all that he left us with
and all that we saw him grow into be.
Man, if this isn't the most polarizing sneaker
in basketball history, I don't know what it is.
You know, a lot of people really hate this shoe
and a lot of people have developed a new love for it
now that the time has passed,
but no matter what you feel about the shoe,
you feel it really passionately.
And that's because it is one of the most uniquely designed
sneakers that we've ever seen in the NBA.
It was designed in conjunction with Audi.
So, you know, you have a hood-like upper,
just like you'd have a hood on a car.
It hid the laces underneath the hood.
You had the midsole built into the actual upper,
which was kind of crazy.
Midsoles are defined as midsoles
because they are a different part of the sneaker
and you wanna have something you can land on
when you're jumping up and down.
So, to build that into the upper of the shoe,
unless it's done perfectly
and with expert craftsmanship
might not work out so well.
And, of course, this was the shoe
that some people say forced Kobe
to buy himself out of his Adidas contract
just because it's a forward thinking design,
to be diplomatic.
The best part of this shoe
is opening night of the 2001 season.
Kobe played in a USA themed colorway of the shoe
as a tribute to 9/11.
So, you know, this was an early indication
of just how well Kobe would use footwear to tell stories.
And it was an amazing tribute.
They played the Portland Trail Blazers,
which they were a great team back then,
big game opening night.
This was ring ceremony night for the Lakers
for their second chip of the three-peat.
And that's definitely
the most iconic moment for the Kobe 2.
Didn't have many others,
he stopped wearing the Kobe 2.
By the time they got to the finals in 2002,
he went right back to the Kobe 1
because he didn't really want anything to do
with this sneaker anymore.
But it does go down in sneaker history,
whether you love it or not, whether you hate it or not,
doesn't really matter, it's extremely famous
and it's part of the amazing sneaker history of Kobe Bean.
Allen Iverson.
So as you can see behind me,
you got pound-for-pound right here,
We got Bubba Chuck right back here.
One of the best players,
one of the most influential players
in all of basketball history
and the reason that Allen Iverson became Allen Iverson,
you can trace it back to Michael Jordan.
He loved Michael so much
that he wanted to follow in Michael's footsteps
by being different.
When Reebok approached him and said, yo, let's be different,
don't just wear Jordan's like you did in college,
don't just wear Nike's like everyone else.
Start your own thing,
start your own wave, be your own man.
They came up with the Question Mid,
which is, to me,
a top five basketball sneaker of all the time.
Just like the nicest, nicest,
most premium tumbled leathers on the upper.
Super soft on the toe box, collar was beautiful.
Then they had the Hexalite technology in the midsole
which was...
It's based off of honeycombs.
Honeycombs are one of the strongest
natural structures that you'll ever find.
They get their strength from their uniformity,
from their connectivity.
And so, Reebok found a way
to mold their midsole cushioning
into this honeycomb-like structure, they called it Hexalite.
This was included in Chuck's Question Mid,
which is the shoe that he wore
for his unbelievable rookie of the year season.
And he was just doing all this,
all the exaggerating, one, two, yo-yos,
all that type of stuff.
And we really saw him become pound-for-pound
and start to make his way to be one of the best of all time
and one of most influential of all time.
AI, just like Mike and just like Kobe, just like KG.
This was a man that just played with a fearless passion
and so, it spoke to everyone that A, wanted to be like him,
wanted to play like him,
wanted his kicks that you see right here.
So, you mix all that together
and you have pound-for-pound, one of the best to ever do it.
P.J. Tucker.
We gotta go Back to the Future real quick.
So, we got to talk about Marty McFly and the AIRMAG.
If we go back to Back to the Future Part II,
famous scene, Marty McFly gets some auto-lacing shoes.
And this was a sneaker.
It wasn't fully functional yet,
they had dudes laying on their stomachs
behind Michael J. Fox.
They were pulling these little strings
to make everything look like it was automatic.
But even that was thought up by Tinker Hatfield,
legendary sneaker designer, the best of all time,
the Picasso of our time,
Mozart, whoever you wanna call him.
And he came up with this shoe of the future.
It was a super tall shoe,
almost a boxing boot type height that said AIRMAG.
It had a bunch of stuff that people in the 80's
weren't really used to seeing.
And so, that colorway, that specific colorway
is the direct inspiration for the shoe
that you see P.J. Tucker wearing right here.
So, for all the innovations that the AIRMAG presented,
now you look at this Hyperdunk,
which is the 2008 model,
the debut model of the Hyperdunk line.
Hyperdunk line will continue for 10 different versions.
But this '08 Hyperdunk,
extremely, extremely influential.
Extremely technologically advanced by the time it came out.
It's inspired by the cables that hold up bridges.
So, Nike designers were trying to find a way to cut weight,
they were trying to find a way
to make light basketball shoes
because the athlete was evolving and growing
and you had dudes like Kobe, 6'6,
who could easily take a beating, but then he could also fly.
He was doing different stuff on the basketball court.
And so, they were trying to find a way
to make a light but supportive shoe.
And they looked at these bridge cables
that held up these massive, massive structures
without a ton of support.
You look at the Golden Gate Bridge,
you look at the Brooklyn Bridge.
It's not a ton of support that you see on the sides
of that type of stuff
relative to the actual structure that we drive over.
So, they found out that if you strategically place
these cables in the right spots,
they can hold up and support a massive amount of weight.
So, when you look at this Hyperdunk,
you see the lines that go this way and this way,
all through the clear side of the shoe,
that's called Flywire.
And Flywires, the innovation
that they were able to come up with,
that they were able to get inspired by the bridges by.
And so P.J, he brought out
this incredibly, incredibly influential sneaker in LA
because Kobe Bryant was the person
to debut the Marty McFly Hyperdunk way back in the day.
He showed up in the DeLorean for the launch
of this colorway just like in Back to the Future,
just like Marty McFly would have done with Doc Brown.
So, PJ being a sneaker king, understanding moments,
understanding the significance of where he's playing,
understanding all these different factors.
He broke these out,
he changed out the white laces, he put in some pink laces,
which was a super fire touch.
And it just really does separate P.J. Tucker
as a sneaker king
because I'll tell you what,
those sneakers right there are super difficult to find.
Nate Robinson.
Man, shout out to little Nate.
So, we're here in '09 at the dunk contest in Phoenix.
And the reason that the Kryptonate Foamposite Lite
was created was because of the 2008 dunk contest
when Dwight Howard stepped out the phone booth,
he became Superman,
he was dunking from like 35 feet away,
just like catching the ball and throwing it into the rim,
just like that.
He was flying like Superman.
So Nate, he wanted to beat Superman
and what beats Superman?
Kryptonite.
Kryptonate.
And so, Nike was able to hook up little Nate
with these amazing PE's.
They say NR on the side of them.
It's part of the Foamposite line
and the Foamposite line started
with the Arizona Wildcats technically in 1997,
Mike Bibby and the guys over there.
This was a sneaker that was made for Penny Hardaway,
but Mike Bibby and the Wildcats
debuted them before Penny, the Foamposite One.
Foamposite is this shell-like material
that's placed on the upper.
It's this heavy plastic,
but the amazing thing is that if you wear it enough
and we're not talking like, you know,
you can't wear them for two weeks or two months,
you gotta put some actual legitimate wear into it.
But the thing will start to mold to your foot.
So, you put up with the heaviness of it
because it will start to mold to your foot
and give you this one-of-one feeling
that you can't get in just another pair
of them right off the shelves.
So, the Foamposite line has continued for years.
It's been on everyone's feet since 1997.
You know, you go down to the DMV in Washington D.C,
you see everybody wearing Foams.
Foam Ones and Foam Pros.
That's like the official sneaker of the DMV.
And then you go through the Foamposite One
into the LeBron 4, which had a Foamposite material on it
into this Foamposite Lite, which Nate wore.
The Foamposite, huge part of Nike's history
in designing basketball footwear.
And this moment right here,
man, they just cooked up an amazing colorway.
Nate won the dunk contest.
He comes down off the rim, he takes off the shoes,
he holds them up like a gladiator.
Are you not entertained type of thing.
And you know, this shoe is forever linked to Nate now,
even if you don't have this exact colorway,
but this Foamposite Lite will forever be linked to Nate.
Dee Brown.
At the 1991 dunk contest,
Dee Brown is out near half court.
He reaches down and he starts to pump up
on the tongue of his shoe.
He starts to run towards the rim
and everyone's like, yo,
what's going on, what's going on?
He covers his eyes and he dunks blindly in the dunk contest.
Blindly, whoever knows how real it was.
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
Shout out to Dee Brown.
But he wins the dunk contest and all of a sudden,
the Reebok Omni Lite just blows up.
And this is part of Reebok's Renaissance
in the 90's using the pump technology.
That's what he was using
on the tongues of his sneakers was to pump up his shoes
to give him an added structure of support
in the ankle area of his shoe.
So, the Reebok pump is now part
of a bunch of different Reebok sneakers.
It launched in 1989 and then you fast forward to this.
This moment in '91 with the Omni Lite.
The way that it works,
there are these inflation chambers within the shoe.
So, once you've reached down
and press on the actual pump device,
the shoe will pump in air
and it'll contract to your desired amount of lockdown.
Revolutionary stuff for 1991 when production material
wasn't where it is now.
The materials that they had available to them
certainly wasn't what it is now.
So, Reebok created an all-time classic silhouette
with an amazing amount of technology in it.
And this is also...
Hex technology was included in this shoe
just like it was included in the Question Mid.
But Dee Brown, man,
synonymous with the pumps forever and ever and ever.
It's been ruptured a few times.
It will go down in basketball sneaker history
as a very defining shoe for a very defining dunk contest.
Kevin Garnett.
A lot of people know KG for his time with Adidas
when he was winning the chip in '08 with the Celtics.
He had his own face on the side of the shoes.
I don't know how people feel about that,
that's kind of crazy.
But before Adidas happened,
before he signed with Adidas,
he was Nike from '96 to '01.
So, he had his own signature shoe.
He had two of his own signature shoes
and before that and in between
that the Garnett 2 never really got off the ground.
But he was famous for wearing Uptempos.
He played in Concord 11's.
Once the Garnett series did officially launch,
the Garnett 3 was by far his best shoe of the whole line.
Whole line being two shoes,
but it was a very revolutionary shoe.
It used a nice leather and mesh uppers.
It had a zoom air bag in the forefoot.
Its defining piece of technology
was the Tuned Air piece in the back of the heel.
Tuned Air was made popular in the Air Max line
a few years before KG's signature line,
but it's a separated air unit in the heel.
Nike found a new way to manufacture the air
that passes through those chambers.
Unfortunately, KG's work with Nike ended soon after that.
But the KG 3, very underrated part of sneaker history.
If you do know about it,
then you know that things were really looking up
for KG's Nike line
if he had continued to stay with the swoosh.
But luckily, we do have the KG 3.
It retroed in 2015 under a different name.
They removed Garnett's branding from the shoe.
It seems like it will always be destined
to be a sneaker for the heads.
Something that the general public might not
always appreciate as much as it deserves to be appreciated.
Most amazing thing that I've seen in basketball footwear
and that I've studied in basketball footwear
is the connections that people now form to sneakers
and the memories that they connect
to not only have played on the court,
but first time that they saw a shoe on court.
The technology advancement that we've seen in footwear
has been amazing.
And now we have self-lacing shoes
and Adidas has 4D printing
and they have their product for the oceans thing
where they're trying to help save the environment.
That's all beautiful stuff,
but the most amazing thing to me
is the memories that we now form with basketball footwear
and it's the reason that I'm sitting here today
talking to you guys.