- This is a guy that had Michael Jordan
asking him how he got a pair of Jordans
like, we could stop right there.
What's going on guys, I'm Max Resetar from SLAM Magazine
and today we're looking at some of our favorite sneakers
worn on NBA courts in recent memory.
[upbeat hiphop music]
James Harden.
Right after Kobe Bryant passed away,
We saw players from high school, college, pro,
women's side, Euro league
all paid tribute to Kobe and GiGi with their sneakers
and every tribute was special in its own way.
These Question Mids that Jason Harden is wearing
was to me, the most special tribute
because no one else wore these.
The history of this shoe,
as it's connected to Kobe is very, very, very significant
within sneaker history, within Kobe's history
and now within James Harden's history.
Just to back it up a little bit
Kobe Bryant wore Adidas from '96 to 2002.
He bought himself out of that contract with Adidas
and a clause in that contract said that
he couldn't sign with another sneaker brand
for an entire season so Kobe's 2003 season goes down
as the best sneaker-free agency season of all time by far.
Everyone was trying to get him to sign with them:
Reebok, Nike, Jordan.
So Reebok, of course, joined in on the party
and they sent him Question Mid PE's.
Question Mid, Allen Iverson's first
signature sneaker of all time.
Probably Reebok's best basketball shoe ever.
They sent him these PE's to try to get him
to sign with Reebok.
Of course it didn't work he went on to sign with Nike
but this is a rare shoe, this is a very rare shoe.
Not many out there.
They had plans, actually, before Kobe passed to release
these in a different variation but they were gonna release
some Kobe Question PE's.
Those planned have been scrapped
but James Harden's a California kid.
We was back in L.A shortly after Kobe passed away
and this was a very touching tribute to Kobe.
P.J. Tucker.
About a week before Kobe passed away
P.J. showed up to a game against the Lakers
in a pair of Kobe Air Jordan 3s,
and this an Air Jordan 3 that has a white base,
and then Laker accents, so gold and purple,
so this goes back to that sneaker-free agency season
when all the brands are trying to sign Kobe.
Some of the Air Jordan's that he played in,
he played in Concords, Concord 11's
which were just a general release
but then he also got PEs which stands for Player Edition
he got PEs of the 3, the 7 and the 8, and so P.J
some how, some way, he's a sneaker king,
he was able to track down a pair of these Kobe 3's
to wear against the Lakers earlier this season.
You know, part of the thing that makes P.J the sneaker king
is the knowledge that he has.
This is something that we like to call strategic feets
and what that means, anytime that you play a team
that has a legend or you're in that players city
it's always a great idea to put on a pair of their shoes,
a pair of shoes that they made famous.
You know P.J's not the only person that does this.
Montrezl Harrell does it,
Langston Galloway does it,
Taurean Prince does it.
Again this is a week before Kobe passed away
and so this shows the reverence that all these players have
for Kobe, for his sneaker line,
and this was a pair that never dropped.
It's honestly a priceless sneaker
like, these is no market for it
but this was a great, great, great sneaker appearance
by the sneaker king.
We gotta rewind real quick,
we gotta go back to 2017.
So in 2017 Drake was Jordan brands guy.
Officially he was part of the brand
and he posted an Instagram video of three sneakers.
One of them was the Tokyo Air Jordan 5
which is a super rare shoe, super fire.
All due respect to that shoe, no ones knocking that
but the two other pairs that he posted
were Air Jordan 11 samples.
So these were Air Jordan 11s that were just made for him
and his OVO team.
One of them was a pink snake skin
and the other one was a gray snakeskin
and they never saw the light of day.
This is maybe 15 pairs out in existence
maybe less, who knows?
But P.J. sneaker king was able to track down a pair
of each and during this season he played in each colorway
and this was at one point a store in Portland called Index.
I was able to get a size 10 in each colorway
and they sold those pairs for $12,500 each,
so that gives you an idea of the magnitude of this colorway
that P.J. Tucker played in
a combined $25,000 on the court.
The Jordan brand keeps the 11 super limited,
they keep the 11 for PEs I should say,
they keep 11 PEs limited for champions and record breakers
so you know, Ray Allen has 11 Pes,
Chris Paul has 11 PEs
Carmelo Anthony, a few track stars, a few golfers,
CC Sabathia and Derek Jeter, champions,
and so Drake, he's Drake,
I don't have to say anything.
I'd say its very unlikely that we see these pairs, ever.
Lebron James.
So I would put the Lebron 15 in the top three
of Lebron's footwear of his signature line
up there with the Air Zoom generation
which is his first shoe and the Lebron 7
which is the first Lebron that had flywire,
had a full length air bag, had a patent leather toe rand
just like the Air Jordan 11
but for Lebron 15, what separates the Lebron 15
from the rest of Lebron's line is Lebron Watch.
So what that was,
Lebron's fandom for basketball and for sports
goes back a long time, it goes back
to when he was a kid growing up in Akron
when he was idolizing Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson.
What Lebron Watch did was it took the treatments
of those legendary sneakers and they applied
the two to the Lebron 15,
so what we have here is the Yeezy 1, Lebron 15,
and the Yeezy 1 needs no introduction.
The net colorway that we see right here
was dropped in June '09, blew everything up.
Kanye's sneaker line with Nike is extremely,
extremely influential and honestly if you look
at Kayne's line of work as a whole he hasn't had any type of
drop off in production since his Yeezy 1's that inspired
this Lebron 15, so you combine that history right there
with the Lebron 15 history,
where it's just this melting pot of history
of basketball history, of footwear history,
and Lebron played in these, it's now the second time
he's played in these and man,
these are some beautiful shoes right here, beautiful shoes.
Emmanuel Mudiay.
Emmanuel Mudiay came into the NBA
with an Under Armor contract,
so he was one of the people on the UA family,
and that contract expired this season.
He had a nice sneaker season, he played with some heat,
he had a consistent run with some Air Jordans,
he had some nice Nikes but this by far
this is the D Rose 1.5 and this is the shoe that D Rose wore
in the back half of his MVP season which happened in 2011.
So Mudiay with his now sneaker-free agency
he made a beautiful tribute to D.Rose,
to one of the most influential seasons
that I've ever seen you know, coming up,
the 2011 D Rose is the youngest MVP of all time
and one of the most electrifying
and inspiring players that we've ever seen
on the basketball court, you know, he had no fear,
top 10 athleticism, ever if you wanna put a number on it
that season was a masterpiece
so, for Mudiay to rock these, this is now the retro version.
Adidas came out with the D Rose 1 at All Star Weekend
and the D Rose 1.5 Retro followed up.
So this has sprint frame tooling which it goes from the heel
all the way up to the toe
and that's the tooling that the upper rests on
which is also made of sprint material,
it's called sprintskin.
Super lightweight material for the upper
with some mesh hits, some leather also.
This is Adidas in the early 2010s,
this is their bread and butter.
This was a commercial for D Rose where this was,
every year it seemed like the D Rose commercials
were just hitting, they were all fire.
So in this particular commercial,
just to demonstrate D Rose's speed
it starts off in fast motion, in regular speed,
and D Rose starts to spin the shoe on his finger
and then all of a sudden it just cuts,
and it goes in slow motion and D Rose kinda looks up
and he gives like the you can't guard me type face
with his shoe still spinning.
Super fire commercial, super fire move by Mudiay
to bring these out and just to show, again,
the knowledge of when Mudiay was coming up.
He was right around that age for that D Rose season
to be impacted by those legendary performances.
Royce O'Neale.
Royce O'Neale had a pretty impressive sneaker season.
He made it known that he likes to customize his footwear
so he played in an Ironman colorway of the Kyrie Low 2,
he played in a Dragonball Z colorway of some Kobe ADs,
but by far this was the best custom sneaker
that we'd seen thus season.
This is a tribute to the late 90s Jazz
with the mountain jerseys,
John Stockton, Karl Malone, Ryan Russell, Jeff Warner Seth
they all worse this jersey
and the Jazz bought the jersey back
and so, there's one night, early in the season where
they were wearing that uniform
and Royce O'Neale was able to hook up with Andrew Lewis
who is now a pretty popular sneakers
customizer for NBA players and they just bodied this custom.
This is perfectly done.
They made perfect use of the real estate
of the Zoom Freak 1 which is Giannis Antetokounmpo's debut
signature sneaker and this was perfect execution.
No one knew it was coming so the night that he wore it
he blew up on Instagram, everyone was talking about it,
he had good game.
Custom sneakers have now become pretty popular in the NBA.
Believe me its easy to go O.D with these,
you can definitely mess up a pair of custom kicks
but this was just a perfect mix.
This was a great use of historical throwback
with a brand new pair of sneakers.
Langston Galloway.
Langston Galloway is a true sneaker head.
This is a dude that has a genuine knowledge of footwear,
of sneaker history, and that is truly reflected
in his work with Q4.
So a lot of people don't really know Q4.
Q4 is a relatively new company.
They have a few NBA players,
a notable one would also be E'Twan Moore the sharpshooter
from the New Orleans Pelicans
but the amazing thing about Q4 is knowing Langston's
passion and knowledge for footwear
they said, all right, here's what we're gonna do.
you're gonna sign with us, you can wear The Specialist
which is the shoe that you see here
but we're gonna let you customize every single colorway
that you want, for every single game.
So LG, since 2017, has pretty much
played in a new colorway for every game
and this goes, Spongebob, black history month,
Detroit Pistons Bad Boys,
all the way up to the Selena colorway which we see here.
And the story with this is the Pistons were in Mexico
earlier this season for a regular season game
and for those who don't know,
Selena is one of the best vocalists in modern time.
She was tragically murdered just when she was 23 years old
so this was a tribute to Selena in Mexico,
and it just shows the power of footwear
and the power of storytelling
which is why we all gravitate to these sneakers,
it's because of the moments and the memories
and the stories that you can tell
without saying anything.
This shows LG's respect for Selena,
it shows a plan that he had in his head
to make sure that this sneaker was done
before he was in Mexico and again this is Andrew Lewis
who worked with Royce O'Neale.
He does pretty much all of LG's customs
he's an amazing artist
and they have a really good
creative flow that they work with.
It's not too much, it's just perfect, it shows her portrait,
her signature, and it's a really nice tribute
to a really great singer.
Donovan Mitchell.
One of the most amazing things about social media now
is how it has brought global issues
to the front door of not only the adults that were always
talking about it but young people
that now have a voice and a platform
to spread awareness about catastrophes
that affect all of humanity.
So Donovan Mitchell is one of those people
and this is not the first time that he has used his platform
to shed light on things that people need help with.
He also has an autism awareness colorway
of his signature shoe,
he's multiple times given platform to kids just to help
and to inspire different people that maybe weren't able
to get the help that he got or that he wanted
when he was coming up and he wanted to be more
than a basketball player.
So with this colorway that he showed up to in Brooklyn
and rather than flex with a crazy colorway
that just looks good he wore one sneaker for Puerto Rico
and one sneaker for Australia
to raise awareness for the Australian bush fires
that were happening earlier in the year
and the Puerto Rican earthquakes that were also happening.
And so this pair, after this game was auctioned off
and the funds from that auction went to relief efforts
in both of those places.
So again this is just the power of footwear
and there's a lot of hype releases
that we could have covered in this video
and there's a lot of different Jumpman and Swoosh
and all that type of stuff
but the footwear that really means something
is the stuff that goes beyond the basketball court
and it goes beyond just that one player.
This is the perfect example of that moment right there.
Austin Rivers.
it was just a regular night in December in 2019
when Austin Rivers decided to blow up the sneaker internet.
He just decided to show up in these Pro Model 2Gs
and the reason I say that he blew up the sneaker internet
is because when you rewind to the early 2000s
these Pro Models right here were everywhere,
I promise you, everywhere.
Middle school basketball, high school basketball
college basket basketball, the NBA, the WBA.
It does not matter what level basketball,
who was playing, man or woman, this shoe was everywhere.
I'm 26 years old so I fully remember this moment
but when he brought these out it happened out of nowhere.
Adidas had no real push,
no real way of letting us know that this was a retro model
that was coming.
Crazy thing about a retro model
is now we have a little bit of inception type thing going
because this is a retro of a retro so in the 70s,
the Pro Model was made out of leather
just nice tumbled leather
and this was when Adidas was really killing the game.
This was when they had Jerry West wearing the Superstars.
They had Kareem Abdul Jabbar, he had his own shoe,
and then they had this Pro Model.
This is way before Nike got going.
Converse was around,
Converse was a little bit in the picture,
you had Puma with Walt Clyde Frazier,
all due respect to him and those shoes.
But Adidas was killing it, and the Pro Model
was a big part of that,
so when they then retro'd them in 2000s,
in the early to mid 2000s,
they replaced the premium leather with this patent leather,
the shiny patent leather that you see here in this photo
and again people just went crazy.
The shoe was everywhere, it doesn't matter.
Austin Rivers showed up in these
and it just opened the flood gates
and for the rest of the season
Adidas had the Pro Model flowing, they had it going.
So Pat Bev got a PE, Zach LaVine got a PE,
Kyle Lowry got a PE, and then at All Star Weekend
in Chicago they had this metallic gold joint come out
and this was really setting up
to be the year of the Pro Model.
So hopefully once we get basketball back
we can see some more Pro Models
because man this shoe right here is a time machine
for a lot of us that grew up with it.
We can place ourselves right back in the 2000s
listening to all the old music that we used to listen to
and playing ball in these shows right here.
Vince Carter.
The dunk of death.
So the dunk of death happened at the 2000 Olympics
and the reason it's called the dunk of death
is because Vince Carter, no funny, no BS,
100% cleared a seven footer.
He just soared right over him
and put down the nastiest in game dunk that we've ever seen,
that's the nastiest in game dunk we've ever seen.
and the shoe that Vince was wearing during the dunk of death
is called the Shox BB4
and it's a shoe that is now synonymous with Vince.
One of the shoes that Nike was trying to sway him with
during his own sneaker free-agency
Vince bought himself out of his Puma contract.
Vince famously wore the Puma Cell
which is this giant 90s basketball shoe.
And so before you have the Deandre Ayton
and Marvin Bagley renaissance with Puma a few years ago,
Vince was really the last dude to wear
Puma basketball shoes in the NBA
and you know you go into the AND1 Tai Chi
which is what he wore in the dunk contest in 2000
a few months before the dunk of death,
and then once he has the dunk of death
the Shox BB4 forever linked with Vince
he goes on to wear them during the regular season
all of his signature line with Nike has Shox technology.
Shox technology is,
you can find it in the heel of these shoes
just for balancing, that all you gotta know.
And a few years ago in 2018
we weren't really sure Vince never really confirmed
whether he was gonna retire, whether the 2018/19 season
would be his last season so Nike bought the Shox back.
They retro'd the Shox.
They would end up releasing a few months later
and Vince played that entire season of 2018/19 in the Shox
and this season he played in two different
Raptors themed Shox BB4 PEs
so even though he plays in Atlanta
they hooked him up with these amazing PEs
that have raptors claws coming out the sides of them.
This is Vince's last season and the impact that Vince Carter
has had on basketball it really can't be overstated
and sometimes he gets overlooked
in the history of basketball but when you look at,
A his impact on Canadian basketball.
He inspired an entire nation to play ball.
Now we have countless Canadians, men and women,
that had been able to make the pros in America
because of Vince, because of the inspiration
he provided to them,
because of the joy that he played the game with,
because of the crazy ass jumping ability that he had
and the clutch shots that he would go on
to hit later on in his career.
I know what you're gonna say, the 2001 play-offs
don't worry about that,
Vince has the most game wins in NBA history
so there's a little fact for you right there.
This dude is a legend certified.
He's on lock for the hall of fame
and these PEs, another time machine for us,
for us that grew up with Vince,
for us that grew up with the Shox
and wanting the Shox and so when Nike retro'd them
it was an amazing moment
and now when they blessed him with these PEs
a really fitting end to a hall of fame career.
[upbeat hiphop music]
If you go back a few years now
just like what happened with the NBA dress code
it started off super strict
because of this man right behind me,
shout out to this legend,
they had to institute the dress code
but as the years have gone by
it kinda got loosened up a little bit
dudes started showing up again in tech fleece
and then the Russel Westbrooke thing happened
and we got league fits now
and the same thing happened with footwear.
There were uniformity rules put into place
by the NBA for sneakers.
You had to have a white base,
you had to have a black base,
you could have some gray in there,
you had to have your team colors,
but as the years went by as we start to get
into the mid 2000s, late 2000s,
Nike starts to use big moments:
Christmas day, play-offs, All Star game, finals,
they start to use the big moments as an excuse
to create off the wall colorways.
Stuff that really, really pops on screen.
It didn't always match the uniforms
but it always made a huge impression
on people that were watching
both in the arena and at home.
Other brand started to follow and so
you go from having these uniformity rules that were
really instituted because of MJ
and because of the black and red Air Ships
which would go on to be the black and red Air Jordan 1s.
You go from that to having the moment
where they lift the entire colorway rule book
a few years ago and now you just see
a stampede of creativity honestly.