It's gotta be the shoes

My previous post about Fairfax High School’s sweet exclusive Nike basketball shoes got me thinking about my favourite kicks of all time. Without further ado, here’s how I see the top five when it comes to all-time basketball sneakers.


1. Air Jordan XI
I’ll be honest – I’m not an unequivocal fan of Jordan’s signature shoes. Too often, Nike has tried to be overly creative/crazy with the design. Case in point would be XV, which was modeled after an X-15 aircraft and was simply a disaster.
The XI, though, is a marvel. It’s the most beautiful basketball shoe ever built. It’s sleek and functional, and its patent leather is so classy-looking that it can easily be worn with dress pants. I had a friend who rocked the classic black-and-white XIs at his wedding, with a tuxedo.
Personal experience: I wore an all-white pair of XIs during my second year of college basketball. Best shoes I ever wore, in terms of form and function.


2. Adidas Superstar
An oldie, but a goodie. The iconic Adidas shoe has been around since 1969, and its classic design is somehow still relevant. The most striking feature is the rubberized shell toe, which looks soooo slick peeking out from under a pair of jeans.
More than four decades after its debut, the Superstar has transitioned to be more of a casual shoe than a performace shoe. You can find it in a mind-boggling number of colour combinations, and if you don’t have a pair in your closet, you pretty much don’t like shoes.
Personal experience: Currently, I have two pairs of Superstars – white-and-red, and a black-and-gold. And yet, I want more. Honestly, if I had the money, I’d probably have a dozen pairs. These shoes have their own Run DMC song – how cool is that?


3. Reebok Question
The Question was the first signature shoe Reebok made for Allen Iverson when he came out of Georgetown in 1996. Iverson’s nickname was “The Answer”; hence, when his inaugural shoe was released, it was “The Question.” Mildly clever.
In my humble opinion, The Question was the only decent shoe Reebok made for Iverson. But they did completely knock this one out of the park. With clean lines and the exposed Hexalite cells on the sides, the shoe had a very cool, distinctive look. The Question’s status as a classic is confirmed by frequent re-releases.
Personal experience: Two years ago, I bought a white-with-grey-toes version of The Question for use in my Monday church basketball league. The shoes far outclass the level of play, I’ll say that much. They’re as functional as they are beautiful.


4. Nike Air Force 1
The first Air Force shoe, to folks in my generation, is perhaps best known as the shoe that former Detroit Pistons star Rasheed Wallace insisted on wearing long after it was out of regular production.
Design-wise, the AF1 epitomizes the look and feel of all of Nike's best kicks. Doing a bit of background research, I discovered it was the first shoe that used Nike Air technology. Cool.
These shoes have a lot in common with the Adidas Superstar, in that they're available in a ridiculous number of colourways, they're more of a casual shoe than a performance shoe at this point, and they have their own song . . . by Nelly. Advantage, Adidas Superstar.
Personal experience: The fact I’ve never owned a pair of Air Force 1’s is a glaring hole in my sneaker resume. I feel shame.


5. Nike Zoom Kobe IV
Lest you come to believe I’m strictly into old-school shoes, I give you Kobe Bryant’s fourth signature shoe with Nike. Kobe was an Adidas guy when he originally arrived in the NBA, but those early shoes were a bit out there in terms of design.
The reason I love the latest Kobes is, they hearken back to the days of classic Nikes like the aforementioned AF1, in terms of clean design. They’re also ridiculously well-built. I’ve used the adjective “sleek” several times already in this post, but the Kobe IVs practically redefine the term as far as basketball kicks are concerned.
Personal experience: I’ve never owned a pair of these shoes, and I suspect I never will. Reason being, I’m one of the planet’s foremost Kobe-haters, and the notion of buying (and wearing!) a product with his name on it bothers me. Kobe’s an amazing player, don’t get me wrong – one of the 10 best of all time, quite possibly. I respect his skill and competitiveness a great deal, but his ego-centric personality and style of play rubs me the wrong way. He doesn’t seem like he’d be fun to play with whatsoever. And that runs counter to everything I aspire to.
But dang, does he ever have some sweet shoes!

Beautiful basketball shoes

This is more or less a poker blog, but my favourite sport is basketball.
(Quick digression – I don’t consider poker to be a sport. It is competitive, it requires skill, but there is absolutely no athletic ability necessary to succeed at it. It is a contest of intellect, math, psychology and strategy. Thus, it is a game, not a sport).
At any rate, as a hoops-head, I have a natural obsession with basketball sneakers. If I won the World Series of Poker main event, one of my first “investments” would be a few pairs of sweet shoes.
The reason I bring up the topic is, I had a rare chance to see some true collector’s item kicks last week at the Abbotsford Collegiate Snowball Classic, a local high school boys basketball tournament.
Tournament organizers imported a team from Los Angeles – the Fairfax High School Lions. Fairfax is one of only a handful of U.S. high schools that are sponsored by Nike. Part of their deal with the Swoosh is, they get special-edition shoes produced each year featuring the school name and colours. This season, they’re rocking the LeBron Nike Zoom Soldier IV. Note the word FAIRFAX printed vertically on the heel, and the LeBron lion logo on the ankle, which matches the team nickname. (Check the sneaker blog nikelebron.net for looks at more special edition Fairfax LeBrons dating back to 2007).
The photo at the top of this post is of Fairfax’s white shoes that go with their home uniform; the one at the bottom is the corresponding black road edition. Sooooo cool.

LeBron James, and the dis heard round the world

LeBron James is a member of the Miami Heat, but boy, was that ever cold!

The Global Icon not only dissed his home-state team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, he did it on national TV, essentially inserting the dagger slowly and then twisting it.

I don't have a massive problem with LeBron signing with the Heat - he's entitled to do whatever he believes will make him happy, I suppose. I will say, I'm a fan of the romantic notion of one player sticking with one team for his entire career - think Tim Duncan, Steve Yzerman, Derek Jeter, etc. I'm old-school like that.

Anyway, it's how LeBron orchestrated his move that gives me the heebie-jeebies. His break-up with the Cavaliers and their long-suffering fans was the equivalent of turning on the TV and seeing your girlfriend getting it on with Flavor Flav and Bret Michaels at the same time.

Well done, LeBron. In one fell swoop, you went from being almost universally beloved, to giving folks the notion you're kind of a dick.

In one sense, I completely understand LeBron's logic behind the ESPN production. It's his stated goal to become a global icon along the lines of Jay-Z, and the TV show was simply a means of leveraging his free agency to the greatest possible degree.

Even the timing of his announcement demonstrated a global media-savvy. The FIFA World Cup has completely enraptured the sporting audience planet-wide, so when did James choose to steal the spotlight? On Thursday - the day after the soccer semifinals had wrapped up, and before the hype for Sunday's final shifts into overdrive. And to his credit, it worked. For one hour, James owned the singular focus of sports fans, yours truly included.

But I just never figured he'd do his home-state fans like that. When it was announced he'd go on ESPN, I was convinced he was going to pick the Cavs. All the rumblings that the Heat were his imminent choice had to be an elaborately designed smokescreen. I didn't think he had a taste for torture.

The ironic part of all this is, James is making an exceedingly selfless decision in picking the Heat. Sharing the spotlight with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh will, to a degree, impact his ability to be "The Man." But we always knew LeBron was a good teammate. That's why we loved him.

But what we've always wanted from LeBron was for him to be the alpha male, the Chuck Norris, the ultimate beast of the NBA. What he's done, though, is establish himself as a follower. The Miami Heat have become Dwyane Wade's franchise over the past seven years, make no mistake about that. And Bosh picked the Heat more than 24 hours before LeBron, spurning The King's advances to join him in Cleveland.

What I'm trying to say is, Michael Jordan wasn't running around in the mid-80s looking to team up with Larry Bird or Magic Johnson. And while some might view LeBron-to-the-Heat as a selfless move, others might call it weak sauce.

At the end of the day, the James-Wade-Bosh trinity makes for a fascinating scenario for basketball fans. The North American sports scene has never really seen anything like it. The closest thing I can think of would be soccer's Galacticos - Real Madrid circa 2000-2005, featuring David Beckham, Zinedine Zindane, Ronaldo and Luis Figo, among others.

But before we see whether the Heat can become more than the sum of their formidable parts, let's shed a tear for fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers, victims of the most ruthless sports break-up in history.