Monday, February 18, 2008

NBA All-Star Sneakers: What Happened?

Rovell pinged me this morning, curious that I didn't have my usual post-All-Star sneaker awards -- I think it's fair to say that this year was underwhelming.

The most intriguing shoe was Steve Nash's "Trash Talk" Zoom BB II Low, but not because of style -- because of its gimmick: Made entirely from recycled materials (thus "trash talk).

The shoes in the All-Star Game were dominated by the uniform colors: Gold/White (West) and Blue/Gray (East). Gone, apparently, is the era where stars wear whatever they want.

In fact, if you wanted garish (like I did), the place to look was the Rookie-Soph game, which was a blizzard of blazing patent leather. It was my favorite moment thus far as an HDTV owner.

Maybe everyone was focused on the release of the Air Jordan XXIII (with a must-have "stealth" edition coming Saturday). Or maybe the All-Star Game is "over" as a shoe showcase.

-- D.S.

3 comments:

John said...

Why don't they just let the players wear their regular home/away jerseys in the ASG? That might solve the sneaker problem and it definitely solves the problem of trying to follow the game on tv. Whoever the hell designed those ASG uniforms apparently wasn't thinking of the fans at home. When the West was on offense and the East was on defense it looked like it was white on white. I admit I don't have a HDTV, so maybe it was easier to notice the difference if you had one, but it took me a while to realize it was white and a light silver.

Eric Chase said...

You're off the Kevin Love boat right? I know you're a basketball guy, but to not see the dominant NBA potential in Michael Beasley takes from your credibility a bit.

Chris Littmann said...

Dan, the All-Star shoes in many cases were kind of wack because the shoes themselves were wack.

People aren't into the Zoom Kobe III or the LeBron V. The only shoes worth getting excited about seemed to be the Zoom BB II Trash Talk from Steve Nash -- I really liked the all-over stitching -- and the PE colorways of the Jordan XX3.

The stuff worn by the adidas players was fine, but as I said in my pre-All-Star Game post on TSB, it would've been better with Gilbert Arenas around. What they wore looked like a good performance shoe, but it wasn't exactly MJ breaking out the Columbia XI, either.