LeBron James has been with Nike ever since he entered the NBA – but he wore Adidas sneakers in high school.
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The Nike Air Zoom generation may be the one that was popular with the collectors, but there is an even earlier model coming out soon. LeBron James played no college basketball, but his shoes in high school were highly popular. He idolized Tracy McGrady when he was younger, hence the choice.
St. Vincent St. Marys iconic colors of white green and gold were emblazoned proudly on his uniform and his shoes too. The T-Mac 1 and 2 were crazy mashups that had superstar toes and performance basketball bits. The way a 17-year-old King James played had some resemblance to the Orlando Magic man, hence he chose those models.
Kids nowadays may know LeBron shoes to be futuristic big heavy stompers, but the early models were sleeker, and more geared towards explosive moves. The older sneakerheads would know the value of these shoes, and will treasure these for a long time.
Adidas have been running wild with their sneaker releases lately
With Kanye West rumored to leave Adidas, the sneaker brand needs some traction to stay relevant in the market. They have Jerry Lorenzo signed on, but that is not enough. Losing a behemoth like Ye would be catastrophic for them, and releases like these would make the fans gravitate towards their offerings.
Nike have the majority share in terms of star power, but there has been a general shift in power. Adidas have garnered the likes of Trae Young, James Harden and Damian Lillard to name a few. Their technology is frankly one of the best in terms of basketball performance, and the players are starting to take notice.
Getting a rare piece of history like a Nike athlete on an Adidas exclusive makes it a collectors item. Something akin to having Stan Lee sign a batman comic. Getting St. Vincent’s colors on a T-Mac model is legendary, and sneakerheads should be buying up all the bots to acquire these.
