Taunting may be looked down upon while on the court in the NBA, but off it, everything is fair game. At least to the companies that are involved in one of the fiercest sneaker markets ever seen in the league. With so many stars signing as signature athletes for non-traditional shoe manufacturers, the marketing strategies that have arisen in the past year have been nothing short of exceptional. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Converse’s latest stunt, while admired by many, has been nitpicked by Gilbert Arenas for one small reason.
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After defeating the Celtics a couple of nights ago, SGA and Converse projected his signature logo on a few buildings across Boston, including the outside of TD Garden in a BatSignal-esque way.
Gil, while understanding where the idea came from, had one main issue with it. “How the f**k do we supposed to know who it is?” he asked. In case you missed it, Converse debuted Shai’s signature shoes and logo during the All-Star Weekend, less than a month ago. The shoes aren’t available to the public yet, which means the audience hasn’t had time to familiarize themselves to the logo.
He instead felt they should’ve projected SGA’s face onto buildings instead to make the message more potent. “You gotta understand, this his first shoe, this his first logo, no one knows what it is yet,” the three-time All-Star said.
“You have to put a face to the logo, he should’ve been on this building with the logo so that people can correlate the two!”
Gil roasts Converse’s SGA logo display in Boston 😭☠️ pic.twitter.com/mT5DZKYFEE
— Gilbert Arenas (@GilsArenaShow) March 14, 2025
In a way, Arenas is right. The logo was revealed to the NBA world on All-Star Weekend and hasn’t made another appearance in the mainstream since then. Seeing it randomly projected onto random buildings without context must’ve been strange for the Bostonians.
While the discourse about the logo rages on, one thing remains for sure- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has put a lot of thought into the logo, and it was a labor of love for him.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander designed his Converse logo on his own
As the creative director of Converse’s Basketball Unit, SGA has certain liberties when it comes to the direction of his signature line. One of them was his logo, which the OKC guard designed himself.
The mirrored ‘2’ in the logo signifies a lot of things. For starters, it’s his jersey number ever since he started his NBA career. It also signifies his duties on the court- SGA is one of the most well-rounded players in the league and boasts an elite 2 way game.
The third and possibly most integral meaning of this logo is the perfect physical embodiment of the world of basketball and fashion. Shai is famous for his tunnel fits before games and has made plenty of appearances at fashion shows around the world.
The logo represents a balance between the sport and creative freedom coming together in harmony, and it perfectly embodies everything that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander represents.
