The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 142 – Meet Nike Basketball's newest star

Sabrina Ionescu is IT.

Mike D. Sykes, II

Apr 05, 2021

Good morning, family! Happy Monday! Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear. Thank you for rocking with me, as always.

Hope you had an excellent weekend and a fantastic holiday if you do Easter. Here’s to Spring Break!

Let’s jump in.

Sabrina’s officially up next

(Photo by Andy HYD on Unsplash)

Nike Basketball is taking another step into its future this month with its new “Greater Than” series (GT for short).

And the face of it is a woman. New York Liberty point guard and basketball star Sabrina Ionescu is one of the two headlining athlete for the new GT Cut along with De’Aaron Fox.

And rightfully so — she helped build the thing.

Nike consulted Ionescu on the design and development even while she was at Oregon, per ESPN’s Nick DePaula. It was built with her in mind.

The shoe’s details are fascinating. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen before. I got a chance to sit in a meeting with the designer, Ross Klein, and ask about the shoe’s design and inspirations. Here are some details.

It mimics some Kobe models in that the GT Cut is designed low to the ground.
There’s a protective fit with padding on the toes that allows for sharper, hard stops and sudden movements. That was built off of Ionescu’s feedback.
The most interesting part is that there’s a React foam sockliner sitting atop a Zoom Air unit in the midsole. That’s the first time we’ve seen that.

What’s next for Ionescu might be more interesting than the actual details of the shoe. Klein made clear that this shoe was designed with her in mind. He made it a point to say that the shoe wasn’t designed for “both her game and his game” and Ionescu was a large part of that.

This type of feedback and this sort of rollout on a product is normally reserve for the brightest stars of a brand. It’s clear that Nike views Ionescu as one of those stars. They’re invested in her and that’s exciting.

So the question is how do you build on it. And the answer, I think, is obvious — it’s a signature shoe. Maybe not now. But this moment definitely makes it feel like later. And that’s exciting, as we need another signature athlete to come out of the WNBA.

It’s almost been a decade since Candace Parker’s Ace3 dropped with Adidas.

Let’s just hope that later isn’t too far away from now.

Anyone wanna buy the Bok?

(Photo by Henry & Co. on Unsplash)

Adidas announced officially that they were looking to offload Reebok and began divesting in the brand two months ago in February. They put out feelers for the company all the way back in December.

Yet here we are. It’s still on the market. And with the sneaker industry being one of the hottest out there, that’s strange.

Here are some possible reasons why.

Adidas is trying to make as much back on its $3.8 billion spend in 2005 as it can. Reebok is valued at $2.4 billion today.
Brands see how big a reclamation project this was for Adidas and want no parts.
Spending everywhere is tight. We are in a global pandemic, of course.

Regardless of the slow sale, Reebok’s president, Matt O’Toole, is still touting the brand as an “oceanfront property”, per Sheena Butler-Young of Footwear News.

“Anyone who is going to make a commitment to purchase Reebok and the investment required, we want them to share our passion and enthusiasm for not only the Reebok brand, but Reebok’s true potential, and I think the ideal owner will see it the way that we see it…I’m really excited about that and I know there’s an organization of several thousand people who are [also] excited to go on journey with the new owner.”

He’s not wrong. There’s lots of potential there for Reebok. There are plenty of reasons to be excited about it.

There’s an archive they can dig back into that still works. February’s Reebok Pump drop was proof that it works. And we know how nostalgia gets sneakerheads.
There are also a number of forward facing projects they can push, such as Kerby Jean-Raymond’s upcoming line with the brand.

With the right investment strategy here, Reebok could be an asset. But that’s a big risk in 2021. And it’s one that, it seems, not many are willing to take.

SPECIAL DELIVERY x Golf!

WE WENT GOLFING. Last week’s Special Delivery was a bit different. I pulled out some golf clubs from my parent’s garage and took some golf shoes for a spin in the office to test out FootJoy’s new HyperFlex shoe.

Didn’t really work out that well! But we had fun nonetheless. And we got an interview out of it.