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The Official Off-Season NBA Thread
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by pmatic,
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lawdog1
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Why NBA players are hoarding Kobe Bryant's Nike sneaker line
On a quiet evening a few weeks before the start of the regular season, Wilson Taylor was deep inside Paycom Center's laundry room, which doubles as the Oklahoma City Thunder equipment manager's deep storage facility. At a rack pushed up against the wall, he ran his hands over a layer of dust on a cluster of black and gold Nike shoe boxes. Kobe 8 System TB, size 13.5.
He smiled, knowing the score he'd just uncovered. He pulled out his phone, took a picture and texted it to Thunder rookie guard Josh Giddey.
"No way!" Giddey wrote back. "Can I come right now?"
Fifteen minutes later Giddey was in the building, cracking open the five pairs of orange-and-white Thunder-color Kobes that had originally been sent for Derek Fisher, who finished his playing career with the Thunder in the 2013-14 season and had previously been a longtime teammate of Kobe Bryant. Giddey, cradling the boxes like a child on Christmas, looked at Taylor and said: "Can I have them all?"
For years, this might've seemed like an unusual request. In the world of excess and fashion celebrity that is the NBA, shoes are usually ubiquitous. They're always fresh, always everywhere and typically gratis.
Until now.
Last spring, Nike and Vanessa Bryant announced they were parting ways after the shoe giant's deal with the late Kobe Bryant ended. The sides are still talking with the hope they can eventually come to terms, sources told ESPN, but currently the partnership is off. There had already been production delays that prevented players from getting their normal supply during the 2020-21 season, and for now, there are no more Kobes being produced.
Suddenly, the most popular sneaker among NBA players is also the hardest to get.
"If you don't already have them," says Portland Trail Blazers forward Larry Nance, "you're not getting them."
Kobe Bryant's signature Nike sneaker had become unquestionably the most popular shoe for NBA players in recent years. During the 2019-20 season, more than 100 players were wearing the Kobe 4 Protro, a retro re-release of a sneaker Bryant originally wore in 2008. Today's players love the design, the feel and the statement of the Kobes.
"This generation looks at Kobe like our Jordan," says Chicago Bulls guard DeMar DeRozan, known in the league as the dean of the Kobe shoe devotees. "It's a great shoe to wear. Guys really fell in love with it."
In the Orlando bubble in 2020, just months after Bryant's tragic death, nearly one-third of the 330 or so players were wearing a version of Kobe's signature shoe, and that figure was growing. Over the past two years, a number of players who'd previously been with Under Armour and Adidas did not have their sneaker endorsement contracts renewed, a trend that was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the new sneaker free agents went looking for Kobes. It all adds up to a large contingent who now have a source problem for their Kobe needs.
There are still supplies on sale at some retailers, but not in great numbers in the sizes NBA players typically need. The scarcity of larger sizes has driven a pricing boom on secondary shoe resale websites like StockX, GOAT and eBay.
NBA players who wear size 14 or larger are looking at spending at least $800 for the most basic models of Kobes, and that's not what they typically wear. But the players are paying, with several telling ESPN they've spent more than five figures buying supplies of Kobes on the secondary market since last spring and summer.
"I'm not going into a store and finding a [size] 17 in a Kobe. No way," says Anthony Davis, who switched to the Kobes when he joined the Los Angeles Lakers in 2019. "I mean, it's guys' favorite shoes. ... A lot of people are inspired by him and the shoe feels amazing. All of them feel amazing."
Players previously used to wearing whatever colors they wanted -- particularly after the league relaxed its rules around sneakers before the 2018-19 season -- are now scouring the web and trying to hunt forgotten stockpiles to get shoes to wear in games. And they're competing against each other for the available large sizes in the marketplace.
"If you weren't in on them for the last few years," says DeRozan, a longtime Kobe model enthusiast, "you're having a tough time."
Kobes are now considered "deadstock," taking them into a vintage market that ups the ante. NBA players have chased deadstock shoes for years, often to add to their collections to wear or display off the court. Miami Heat forward P.J. Tucker is known for wearing high-end vintage models in games, but he's an outlier.
It's also not unheard of for players to occasionally buy shoes for game usage. Taylor says he sometimes helped players like former Thunder center Steven Adams, who wears size 19 and really liked the way Derrick Rose's older Adidas models fit him, spend a few hundred dollars to chase down extra pairs. More commonly around the league, players wear what they're paid to wear and there's almost never a thought to supply.
The current situation around Kobes is a whole new game, even for players paid to wear Nikes. Giddey, who signed a multi-year deal with Nike before the season, and players like him are spending more than $1,500 on pairs of Kobes right now as they try to stock up for this season and beyond. Their agents are sniffing around for them, calling in favors and hunting the secondary market for their clients but without much success.
"I've had a few guys reach out to me for help," says Phoenix Suns star Devin Booker said. "I'll never run out of Kobes."
Booker and DeRozan have a supply of PEs, shorthand for Player Exclusives, that Nike has set them up with as brand ambassadors for years. But they're in an elite class. The shortage is particularly hitting young players who adore Bryant and his shoe line but haven't had the benefit of being in the league long enough to create a backlog.
"I'm working on it every day," says New Orleans Pelicans rookie Trey Murphy, who wore a pair of Kobes gifted to him by a teammate to start the season. "It's hard out there right now. I'm not DeMar DeRozan."
But even DeRozan can't be DeRozan.
"I used to play in a pair once or twice and then give my shoes away to fans," DeRozan says. "I may not be able to do that as much."
The rumors of the end of the Bryant family agreement with Nike started circulating last season before becoming official in April. Nike reps quietly told team equipment managers to prepare their Kobe guys for an end.
"Some of us got the word and we started hoarding them," says Phoenix Suns forward Jae Crowder. "By the time the news came out, I had banked up enough for about two years."
Stars with major shoe deals like LeBron James, who has given molds of his feet to Nike so custom shoes feel broken in on first wear, break out a new pair each game. Some players will wear them for a couple games. Crowder says his two-year supply was 100 pairs, as he usually goes through about 50 in a year. Davis, on the other hand, uses fewer, as he says he will use around 20-25 pairs of his shallow Kobe supply this season.
Some players without a similarly deep supply have already been forced to switch. Several equipment managers say players have switched to the plentiful Nike Kyrie Irving Low model, which has design similarities to the Kobe model, this season. Others are using Nike's new more generic line, the GT. But many custom shoes have been delayed as Nike and other shoe retailers deal with factory shutdowns in Asia due to COVID-19.
In the meantime, the players who still have Kobes are trying to get the most out of each box.
"The guys I have wearing Kobes are wearing them until they damn near fall apart," one equipment manager says.
When discussing this situation with ESPN, players repeatedly expressed hope that Nike and the Bryant estate can come to a new agreement, a talking point that's been pervasive among sneakerheads this fall. But even if that comes to pass, it would be a long time before Kobes are available again -- to players or anyone else. Product lines typically take Nike 12-16 months to produce, sources say, and that was before the pandemic disrupted global supply chains.
Either way, as this season rolls on and the supplies of the remaining Kobes begin to dwindle with no replacements, the demand of the late Hall of Famer's beloved shoe design will only increase. In a time when some players are dabbling in cryptocurrency investments, there may be a new exchange developing as more players get desperate.
"I've always had so many pairs but I'm looking at them differently now. Guys are asking me [for them] but I can't go through them like I did," DeRozan says. "If it gets bad, I may have to even go to my secret vault."
On a quiet evening a few weeks before the start of the regular season, Wilson Taylor was deep inside Paycom Center's laundry room, which doubles as the Oklahoma City Thunder equipment manager's deep storage facility. At a rack pushed up against the wall, he ran his hands over a layer of dust on a cluster of black and gold Nike shoe boxes. Kobe 8 System TB, size 13.5.
He smiled, knowing the score he'd just uncovered. He pulled out his phone, took a picture and texted it to Thunder rookie guard Josh Giddey.
"No way!" Giddey wrote back. "Can I come right now?"
Fifteen minutes later Giddey was in the building, cracking open the five pairs of orange-and-white Thunder-color Kobes that had originally been sent for Derek Fisher, who finished his playing career with the Thunder in the 2013-14 season and had previously been a longtime teammate of Kobe Bryant. Giddey, cradling the boxes like a child on Christmas, looked at Taylor and said: "Can I have them all?"
For years, this might've seemed like an unusual request. In the world of excess and fashion celebrity that is the NBA, shoes are usually ubiquitous. They're always fresh, always everywhere and typically gratis.
Until now.
Last spring, Nike and Vanessa Bryant announced they were parting ways after the shoe giant's deal with the late Kobe Bryant ended. The sides are still talking with the hope they can eventually come to terms, sources told ESPN, but currently the partnership is off. There had already been production delays that prevented players from getting their normal supply during the 2020-21 season, and for now, there are no more Kobes being produced.
Suddenly, the most popular sneaker among NBA players is also the hardest to get.
"If you don't already have them," says Portland Trail Blazers forward Larry Nance, "you're not getting them."
Kobe Bryant's signature Nike sneaker had become unquestionably the most popular shoe for NBA players in recent years. During the 2019-20 season, more than 100 players were wearing the Kobe 4 Protro, a retro re-release of a sneaker Bryant originally wore in 2008. Today's players love the design, the feel and the statement of the Kobes.
"This generation looks at Kobe like our Jordan," says Chicago Bulls guard DeMar DeRozan, known in the league as the dean of the Kobe shoe devotees. "It's a great shoe to wear. Guys really fell in love with it."
In the Orlando bubble in 2020, just months after Bryant's tragic death, nearly one-third of the 330 or so players were wearing a version of Kobe's signature shoe, and that figure was growing. Over the past two years, a number of players who'd previously been with Under Armour and Adidas did not have their sneaker endorsement contracts renewed, a trend that was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the new sneaker free agents went looking for Kobes. It all adds up to a large contingent who now have a source problem for their Kobe needs.
There are still supplies on sale at some retailers, but not in great numbers in the sizes NBA players typically need. The scarcity of larger sizes has driven a pricing boom on secondary shoe resale websites like StockX, GOAT and eBay.
NBA players who wear size 14 or larger are looking at spending at least $800 for the most basic models of Kobes, and that's not what they typically wear. But the players are paying, with several telling ESPN they've spent more than five figures buying supplies of Kobes on the secondary market since last spring and summer.
"I'm not going into a store and finding a [size] 17 in a Kobe. No way," says Anthony Davis, who switched to the Kobes when he joined the Los Angeles Lakers in 2019. "I mean, it's guys' favorite shoes. ... A lot of people are inspired by him and the shoe feels amazing. All of them feel amazing."
Players previously used to wearing whatever colors they wanted -- particularly after the league relaxed its rules around sneakers before the 2018-19 season -- are now scouring the web and trying to hunt forgotten stockpiles to get shoes to wear in games. And they're competing against each other for the available large sizes in the marketplace.
"If you weren't in on them for the last few years," says DeRozan, a longtime Kobe model enthusiast, "you're having a tough time."
Kobes are now considered "deadstock," taking them into a vintage market that ups the ante. NBA players have chased deadstock shoes for years, often to add to their collections to wear or display off the court. Miami Heat forward P.J. Tucker is known for wearing high-end vintage models in games, but he's an outlier.
It's also not unheard of for players to occasionally buy shoes for game usage. Taylor says he sometimes helped players like former Thunder center Steven Adams, who wears size 19 and really liked the way Derrick Rose's older Adidas models fit him, spend a few hundred dollars to chase down extra pairs. More commonly around the league, players wear what they're paid to wear and there's almost never a thought to supply.
The current situation around Kobes is a whole new game, even for players paid to wear Nikes. Giddey, who signed a multi-year deal with Nike before the season, and players like him are spending more than $1,500 on pairs of Kobes right now as they try to stock up for this season and beyond. Their agents are sniffing around for them, calling in favors and hunting the secondary market for their clients but without much success.
"I've had a few guys reach out to me for help," says Phoenix Suns star Devin Booker said. "I'll never run out of Kobes."
Booker and DeRozan have a supply of PEs, shorthand for Player Exclusives, that Nike has set them up with as brand ambassadors for years. But they're in an elite class. The shortage is particularly hitting young players who adore Bryant and his shoe line but haven't had the benefit of being in the league long enough to create a backlog.
"I'm working on it every day," says New Orleans Pelicans rookie Trey Murphy, who wore a pair of Kobes gifted to him by a teammate to start the season. "It's hard out there right now. I'm not DeMar DeRozan."
But even DeRozan can't be DeRozan.
"I used to play in a pair once or twice and then give my shoes away to fans," DeRozan says. "I may not be able to do that as much."
The rumors of the end of the Bryant family agreement with Nike started circulating last season before becoming official in April. Nike reps quietly told team equipment managers to prepare their Kobe guys for an end.
"Some of us got the word and we started hoarding them," says Phoenix Suns forward Jae Crowder. "By the time the news came out, I had banked up enough for about two years."
Stars with major shoe deals like LeBron James, who has given molds of his feet to Nike so custom shoes feel broken in on first wear, break out a new pair each game. Some players will wear them for a couple games. Crowder says his two-year supply was 100 pairs, as he usually goes through about 50 in a year. Davis, on the other hand, uses fewer, as he says he will use around 20-25 pairs of his shallow Kobe supply this season.
Some players without a similarly deep supply have already been forced to switch. Several equipment managers say players have switched to the plentiful Nike Kyrie Irving Low model, which has design similarities to the Kobe model, this season. Others are using Nike's new more generic line, the GT. But many custom shoes have been delayed as Nike and other shoe retailers deal with factory shutdowns in Asia due to COVID-19.
In the meantime, the players who still have Kobes are trying to get the most out of each box.
"The guys I have wearing Kobes are wearing them until they damn near fall apart," one equipment manager says.
When discussing this situation with ESPN, players repeatedly expressed hope that Nike and the Bryant estate can come to a new agreement, a talking point that's been pervasive among sneakerheads this fall. But even if that comes to pass, it would be a long time before Kobes are available again -- to players or anyone else. Product lines typically take Nike 12-16 months to produce, sources say, and that was before the pandemic disrupted global supply chains.
Either way, as this season rolls on and the supplies of the remaining Kobes begin to dwindle with no replacements, the demand of the late Hall of Famer's beloved shoe design will only increase. In a time when some players are dabbling in cryptocurrency investments, there may be a new exchange developing as more players get desperate.
"I've always had so many pairs but I'm looking at them differently now. Guys are asking me [for them] but I can't go through them like I did," DeRozan says. "If it gets bad, I may have to even go to my secret vault."
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Oops I was mistaken
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It creates/markets demand which they don't have to pay for. Literally they're saving themselves from the expense line item of marketing their own product, while these resellers are basically doing it for them at no cost
There's a reason why Nike's secondary market is the 2nd largest market cap in the sneaker industry. And you have idiots and/or kids paying these resale prices, because apparently it's a "flex" to pay resale.
Retail arbitrage is a hell of a "drug"
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couple of things about this :
the cameras stopped like Bruce Wayne did with that tool in the dark knight rises when he made his first appearance in public.
the smile by larsa at the end of the video had me howling.
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lillard is injured, everyone in POR knows it
it's a problem he's been dealing w for a few seasons. flared up during olympics and missed games last season
time to shut it down
it's a problem he's been dealing w for a few seasons. flared up during olympics and missed games last season
time to shut it down
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gotta be careful with the barbers in Atlanta. Those “celebrity” barbers push you back and then spray you. Have you thinking **** is sweet until you wash your hairHis forehead is wild
Anything worth reading on that site is a behind a paywall
Disgusting what it’s turned into
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is that all it is?
i thought lillard was just being "thorough" all this time
i thought lillard was just being "thorough" all this time
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built similar
Built genetically identical
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Bulls bringing out the pinstripes v Luka 
UC gon be rockin tonight!
UC gon be rockin tonight!
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Should’ve took the grandfather offer and could’ve been rebuilding around Maxey. Shambleslillard is injured, everyone in POR knows it
it's a problem he's been dealing w for a few seasons. flared up during olympics and missed games last season
time to shut it down
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Pardon my ignorance and the silly question but if Nike's secondary market is the second largest market cap in the sneaker industry who is the first? Is it....Nike's primary market
Do you know who comes in at third?The thought of NBA players vying against frail NTers for sneakers they plan to wear in games is comical for some reason
lillard is injured, everyone in POR knows it
it's a problem he's been dealing w for a few seasons. flared up during olympics and missed games last season
time to shut it down
Yep, seemed like it was time for the "lingering injury" leak after last night. Really minus whale trade him or shut him down but I have a feeling they'd do the latter. He's just going to waste another year of his prime in PDX.
Could have just requested the trade to Philly, rested while they cook and when he was healthy he could come back and take them to the next level. Instead he's playing hurt in PDX trying to will them to victory every night and failing to do so while shooting woeful percentages from the field
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Utah returned the exact same roster & the Clippers gave you the blueprint on them…… with Kawhi off the floor no less
Collins at the 5, play five out, bombs away. No need for 35 Capela minutes
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PG ruined that whole question for the reporter
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They need to retro KD 2’s ,4’s and 6’s.
Kyrie 1’s as well but those are too recent.
Kyrie 1’s as well but those are too recent.
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KD IV Retros are gonna go nuts if they just slightly remix the already solid colorways … knowing Nike they will drop them the exact same
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The more you see of Dame the more you realize he's one of the most delusional dudes of all time.
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