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    The Humble ‘Sticky Pad’ Keeping N.B.A. Sneakers on the Court

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    Players across the league have long relied on a pad of translucent sheets of adhesive known as a Slipp-Nott to ensure they have enough traction during games.Gabe Vincent and Max Strus of the Miami Heat sat in their side-by-side lockers at Madison Square Garden an hour before a game against the Knicks. Strus was eating vegetables and rice, and Vincent was changing into his uniform after practicing shots.But Vincent paused when he overheard Strus talking about wiping the bottoms of his shoes with the palm of his hands.“Oh,” Vincent said incredulously, “you’re a lick-and-wipe guy?”“I don’t lick,” Strus said, dropping his fork to reply. “I don’t lick. No, no, no.” His voice was tinged with indignation, as though Vincent had accused him of a crime. Vincent laughed.Many players around the N.B.A. are particular, some even superstitious, about how they ensure their sneakers have enough traction for the court. Some use various wiping methods: the maligned lick-and-wipe, in which they rub their saliva on their shoe soles, or a dry wipe, in which they use only their bare hands. Still, most rely on a wiping pad that sits on the sidelines of N.B.A. arenas. It’s officially called the Slipp-Nott, but most players refer to it as a “sticky pad” or a “sticky mat.”“I feel like the sticky mat is ritual at this point,” Sixers guard Shake Milton said. “It just feels like what you’re supposed to do.”The Slipp-Nott was created in 1987 by Jorge Julian, who left a cushy job at Northrop Grumman in hopes of making basketball courts everywhere squeakier with the sound of sneakers holding firm.There are translucent sheets on the top of the Slipp-Nott slathered with adhesive substances (Julian declined to share the specifics lest he aid his competitors). Once a sheet absorbs too much dust or dirt to work properly, the user can rip it off for a fresh one.The sticky pad comes in different sizes, but the standard is 26 by 26 inches, so that large humans who play basketball can fit their feet on it. Some teams whose arenas have narrower sidelines, like the Utah Jazz, order a small- or medium-size version. The pads can be as small as 15 by 18 inches, which is just big enough for a size 20 men’s shoe.Julian’s first N.B.A. buyer was the Los Angeles Clippers, who purchased the Slipp-Nott in 1988 for a discounted rate of $70 per pad and gave Julian a staff pass to the arena. Back then, players used wet towels and wiping methods to gain traction, so many were skeptical about the pad. To ease their concerns, Julian, using his staff pass, went around to locker rooms with a VHS tape recorder to capture testimonials from athletic trainers and players about the pad’s effectiveness.Larry Bird wiping his sneakers in 1991. Before use of the Slipp-Nott became widespread, players often used their hands to gain traction — some still do.Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE, via Getty ImagesToday, most teams use a Slipp-Nott and have customized pads with their team logos, but the price for those pads is now $588.“That’s like my lifesaver,” Golden State Warriors forward Anthony Lamb said. “I always play in the same shoes, so sometimes when I’m running out of shoes, and my shoes are beat up, I’m going to need that sticky pad.”Lamb plays in the black colorway version of Nike’s Paul George 6 sneakers; worn-down pairs sit near his locker, with fresh pairs in boxes. Sometimes he wears the shoes “five games too long,” he said, and they become slippery.When the Warriors played the New Orleans Pelicans in November, Lamb said, he didn’t make it to the sticky pad before he entered the game and Pelicans forward Brandon Ingram made a move that sent him falling backward on the court. Lamb was on the wrong end of a highlight and the butt of jokes in the Warriors locker room.“My foot didn’t go down,” Lamb said while laughing and putting his face in his palms, “and I was thinking like, Damn, I should’ve hit the sticky pad.”Golden State forward Jonathan Kuminga might have the most shoes of anyone on the team, with innumerable pairs often sprawled in front of his locker and inside his locker drawers.While many players either use the pad or a wiping method, Kuminga doesn’t typically rely on either. He wipes the bottom of one shoe on the top of the other, partly because it saves time, he said, and because he has been doing it since he was a child. Because of that, many of the shoes in Kuminga’s locker look brand-new except for the laces, which are ripped and covered in dirt and dust.“Hopefully, one day, if I get my own shoe, I can maybe add something on my laces so anytime that I’m wiping, I don’t have to mess up my laces anymore,” Kuminga said while holding a pair of shoes with blue laces that had been stained black.The Knicks big men Isaiah Hartenstein and Obi Toppin always end their pregame routine by wiping their shoes on the Slipp-Nott. Hartenstein sprints to the pad first, typically after the starters are announced, and Toppin follows shortly after his teammate, ripping a sheet off when he is done.Knicks forward Obi Toppin always ends his pregame routine by wiping his sneakers on a Slipp-Nott.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesHartenstein nearly forgot to do his part of their routine before Game 5 against the Heat in the Eastern Conference semifinals, but Toppin tapped him on the chest and pointed him toward the pad.“It’s a ritual for us for sure,” Hartenstein said. “We have to do it before every game, and I always go first. We almost got into a fight once because he went first. That won’t ever happen again.”After Slipp-Nott’s creation in the late ’80s, Julian dominated the court-traction market in the N.B.A. That changed in 2011 with the introduction of Court Grip, a bottled liquid product developed by Mission Athletecare that users could rub on the bottoms of their shoes. Dwyane Wade, then a star for the Heat, was a partner.Mission Athletecare’s founder and president, Josh Shaw, said then that it would “probably take six to 12 months for people to realize that it’s obsolete,” referring to Slipp-Nott. A brief rivalry for court-traction supremacy began, but it was Court Grip that ultimately became obsolete. The gray bottle disappeared from the sidelines, and for now, the sticky pad has the hearts and soles of players across the N.B.A. More

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      The Inside Story of N.B.A. Players and Their Socks

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      BOSTON — Several years ago, Kevin Porter Jr., then a high school basketball star in Seattle, made a profound decision, one that would affect his life. He was creating his own team for the video game NBA 2K, and he decided to outfit one of the players in super long, over-the-calf socks.“I really liked it,” Porter said, “so I tried it in real life. And I was like, ‘Yeah, this is my new look.’ ”Porter has remained loyal to the style. Now a fourth-year guard with the Houston Rockets, he often complements his high socks by covering his knees with compression sleeves that are designed for his arms.“So my legs can stay warm,” he said. “A lot of people make fun of having high socks. But honestly, it’s kind of like a ’70s or ’80s look. I’m different, and I like expressing that.”Kevin Porter Jr., of the Houston Rockets, first experimented with high socks by putting them on players in a video game.Carmen Mandato/Getty ImagesClad in their oversize sweaters, avant-garde scarves and bespoke suits, N.B.A. players have long moonlighted as style-conscious trendsetters. Before games, arena corridors double as fashion runways. And once fans find their seats, the league’s stars function as billboards for the hottest sneakers on the market.The N.B.A., though, has seldom allowed players much wiggle room when it comes to an undervalued component of their in-game attire: socks. Players, after all, are required to wear those manufactured by Nike, which has been the league’s sock partner for six seasons.But even within that relatively confined world, players are constantly finding ways to tailor their approaches. Some pull their socks high, while others scrunch them low. Some want a brand-new pair every game, while others are fine cycling through the same laundered pairs for weeks.There are even a few players who purposely take their Nike socks, which are labeled left and right, and wear them on the wrong feet — a practice that has always puzzled Pat Connaughton of the Milwaukee Bucks.“I’ve asked, and nobody’s given me a good answer,” he said.And while it seems most players prioritize function, some favor fashion — perhaps illustrative of a generational divide.“I think there’s a culture change with the younger guys,” said Tony Nila, who has spent 30 seasons with the Rockets, including the last 16 as the team’s equipment manager. “I don’t know if they have so many sock routines or pet peeves. I think they’re more about looking good.”For decades, most players simply wore the socks that teams gave them — sometimes lots of them. Mel Davis, a forward for the Knicks and the Nets in the 1970s, was known to throw on six pairs — six! — before lacing up his sneakers, which was a source of intrigue for opponents and teammates alike.“When I hear sock stories, he’s the first one who comes to mind,” said Kenny Charles, 71, a former guard with the Buffalo Braves and Atlanta Hawks. “Everyone was responsible for their socks. And if you lost them on a road trip, you didn’t say anything. You’d just wait until shoot-around and take a pair out of someone else’s bag.”Sock protocols became more formalized in 1986, when the league created a line of products that included socks, replica jerseys, shorts and warm-ups. It did not take long for the league to mandate that its players wear socks that were produced by its sock licensee, a company called Ridgeview.In the late ’80s and early ’90s, the socks were basic. Some had a couple of stripes around the ankle. Others had the team name running up the side. In 1999, the league began using an Indiana-based company called For Bare Feet, which made socks that were easily identifiable: plush and white with a small N.B.A. logo.A Denver Nuggets player wore socks bearing stripes and the N.B.A. logo during a game in 2005.Brian Bahr/Getty Images“Great sock,” said Eric Housen, Golden State’s vice president of team operations. “Guys loved those.”Before the 2015-16 season, the N.B.A. dropped For Bare Feet in favor of Stance. The Stance socks, though more playful and vivid, were not nearly as popular.“Stiff,” Marcus Smart of the Boston Celtics said. “Hurt your feet. Wasn’t too big on them.”The Stance experiment lasted just two seasons. Philadelphia 76ers forward P.J. Tucker was not enamored with the brand. So, he procured several dozen pairs of thick, padded socks from his favorite sock purveyor, Thorlos — “Most comfortable socks ever,” he said — along with several dozen pairs from Stance, and had them delivered to a tailor for surgery: She cut them all in half, then stitched the tops of the Stance socks to the bottoms of the Thorlos socks.The result was that the Stance design and the N.B.A. logo were still visible while affording Tucker the comfort of his Thorlos down low, where it mattered. It was an ingenious way of skirting league rules.“Socks are super important, bro,” Tucker said.Nike, which did not respond to repeated requests for comment, does offer some selection within the margins of its game-sock cosmos. Its socks, which are a polyester, nylon, cotton and spandex blend, come in four lengths: no-show, quarter, crew and tall. (Housen could not think of a current player who wears the no-show socks; the last player who did, he said, may have been Luke Ridnour, a journeyman guard who announced his retirement in 2016.) Players can opt for a type of sock called “Quick,” which is thinner, or “Power,” which has more padding.And there are different sizes. When Boban Marjanovic, a 7-foot-4 center, joined the Rockets in an off-season trade, Nila, the team’s equipment manager, was grateful that he had some size XXXL socks on hand.When Boban Marjanovich was traded from the Dallas Mavericks to the Houston Rockets, the Rockets’ equipment manager was ready with the right socks.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesZion Williamson of the New Orleans Pelicans flips down the tops of his socks so the orange stripe will show.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesBut while there is flexibility in terms of the style and fit of the socks from game to game, teammates must wear the same color. As they rotate through different uniforms, some franchises mix it up: purple socks one game, black the next. Others keep it simple. Keen observers of foot fashion may have noticed, for example, that the New Orleans Pelicans strictly wear white socks, which forward Brandon Ingram prefers. Zion Williamson, Ingram’s teammate, adds pizazz by flipping down the sock tops to expose a colorful thread that runs along an inside seam.“I like the orange stripe,” he said.Of course, getting players to color-coordinate their socks can cause the occasional complication. One N.B.A. equipment manager, who requested anonymity to protect the sock-wearing behaviors of the team’s players, recalled a long-ago playoff series when the team busted out black socks for the first time. During an early timeout, one of the players opined that they must have been made of burlap: Why are we wearing these?The player was so irritated that he removed his black socks in the huddle and replaced them with white ones. The equipment manager panicked, then lopped off the top of the player’s black socks and slid them over the white ones like wristbands to obscure the clashing color — all in the middle of a playoff game.Lest anyone think the N.B.A. is lax about its sock policies, consider Smart’s experience at the start of the 2017-18 season, when Nike was the league’s new partner. For the season opener, he folded the tops of his socks down because they felt more comfortable that way, he said. The problem was that he wound up hiding the Nike swoosh.“I got a call from the league, and they said that Nike said I did it on purpose,” said Smart, who was sponsored by Adidas at the time. “So they were like, ‘You’ve got to wear your socks the right way or you’ll be fined.’ ”How much? “I didn’t want to find out,” said Smart, who now has a deal with Puma.Marcus Smart of the Boston Celtics once folded down the tops of his socks, obscuring the Nike logo. He said he was threatened with a fine.Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty ImagesTeams typically order their socks from Nike about a year in advance. Last month, Housen ordered about 2,500 pairs of socks for Golden State — about 150 per player — for next season. Each team gets an annual stipend for Nike gear.“But based on the amount of product we need, it only covers about 20 to 25 percent of the overall spend,” said Housen, who added that game socks tend to last “as long as you launder them well.”Golden State has a warehouse in San Francisco where Housen houses heaps of team gear for players like Stephen Curry, a star who sometimes opts for crew-length socks but usually wears quarters under his ankle braces.A decent segment of the league wears two pairs. But within that subset are variations. Connaughton said he began doubling up when he was in high school because he believed it helped prevent blisters. Jabari Smith Jr., a first-year forward with the Rockets, wears a pair of Adidas socks underneath his Nike ones.Sometimes, it depends on the sneaker. Larry Nance Jr., a forward with the Pelicans, said one pair of socks typically sufficed when he wore LeBron James’s signature Nike shoes. But he wears two pairs whenever he reaches for his Air Jordan 10s, which are “a little flimsier,” he said.Tucker, who has an enormous sneaker collection, gets why all of this may sound so strange. Most people can get away with wearing crummy socks, he said. But professional athletes are different.“Your feet got to feel right,” he said. “If your feet don’t feel right, forget it.” More

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      Why Nike Can Afford to Drop Kyrie Irving, Exerts Say

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      Kyrie Irving’s relationship with the athletic apparel giant has been lucrative, but his recent post about an antisemitic movie has led the company to suspend its dealings with him.Nike is facing plenty of challenges this year.A glut of sneakers and sports clothing has built up in recent months, leading to concerns that Nike will have to heavily mark down prices on shoes and sportswear if it wants to sell them during the competitive holiday season. That has taken a toll on its stock, which has fallen 41 percent in the past year.Then on Thursday, one of the superstar athletes with whom Nike partners, Kyrie Irving, was suspended by the Nets after he posted a link to an antisemitic film on social media.A day later, Nike suspended its relationship with the basketball star and said it would not release Mr. Irving’s new shoe, the Kyrie 8, which was supposed to hit the market on Tuesday. Nike has produced the shoe since 2014. The company does not disclose exactly how much revenue Mr. Irving’s shoes bring in, but it is only a fraction of what the company earns from its ties to other notable stars, especially the basketball great Michael Jordan.“There are some things that are outside of Nike’s control,” like supply chain and sourcing issues that are not so easily fixed, said David Swartz, an equity analyst at Morningstar. “This Kyrie Irving situation was in Nike’s control. They can drop him.”Nike did not respond to an email seeking comment on the financial implications of the suspension or the future of Mr. Irving’s relationship with the company.In its statement announcing the suspension of the relationship with Mr. Irving, the company said: “At Nike, we believe there is no place for hate speech and we condemn any form of antisemitism.” It went on to add, “We are deeply saddened and disappointed by the situation and its impact on everyone.”It was the second time in recent weeks that an athletic apparel company found itself in the middle of a controversy involving a celebrity partner.Last month, the rapper and designer Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, made a series of antisemitic remarks and wore a shirt with a slogan associated with white supremacists. Numerous companies and brands, including Balenciaga and the Creative Artists Agency, cut ties with the artist.But Adidas, which took slightly longer to sever its relationship with Ye, will suffer a significant financial impact. It had built an entire division inside the company dedicated to manufacturing and selling Yeezy merchandise. The company said the move would cost it 250 million euros, or roughly $246 million, this year.Unlike Adidas and Ye, Nike is not likely to experience the same sort of financial impact from suspending its relationship with Mr. Irving, whose contract with the company expires in October 2023.For Nike, the Jordan brand and its ties to Michael Jordan remain the gold standard. Last year, the Jordan Brand — which includes sneakers and other athletic wear — made up $5 billion of Nike’s $44.5 billion in total revenue.In the hopes of finding the next Mr. Jordan, Nike has inked deals with numerous basketball stars, including the Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James, and Mr. Irving’s Nets teammate Kevin Durant.Many early iterations of Mr. Irving’s sneakers have been popular among fans and fellow basketball players.On a December 2020 call with Wall Street analysts and investors, John Donahoe, the president and chief executive of Nike, said, “This quarter’s launches in basketball, including the LeBron 18 and the Kyrie 7 have sold incredibly well.”Using celebrities and athletes to hawk products, or even design and develop them, is nothing new. For athletic giants like Nike, Adidas and Under Armour, forming ties to entertainment stars or top sports figures has been extremely lucrative for decades. But linking a brand to a celebrity or an athlete has always had its perils and, in the age of social media, those risks are increasingly apparent.Brands “have always been worried about this with celebrity endorsements,” said Barbara Kahn, professor of marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.She said that in the past, companies relied on tying advertising campaigns more to the attributes of their products or how those products would make shoppers feel.“What you’re now seeing brands having to grapple with is what their brand values are,” Ms. Kahn said. “That makes the branding decisions much more complicated.”Nike has at times embraced divisive endorsers and polarizing ad campaigns. But Mr. Irving’s antisemitic remarks seemed to make suspending him a straightforward decision, Ms. Kahn said. She added that it was a continuation of the diversity and equity values that it has been signaling to consumers since partnering with the former N.F.L. quarterback Colin Kaepernick in 2018.The situation involving Mr. Irving began last month when he posted a link on social media to the film “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” which is driven by antisemitic tropes. Among its claims is that the Holocaust never happened.When the Nets suspended Mr. Irving a week later, it said he was “unfit to be associated” with the team because he had since declined to say that he had no antisemitic views.The Lakers superstar Mr. James told reporters that he believed what Mr. Irving had done “caused some harm to a lot of people.”On Thursday, after being suspended, Mr. Irving apologized on his Instagram account. “To All Jewish families and Communities that are hurt and affected from my post, I am deeply sorry to have caused you pain, and I apologize,” he said.For Mr. Irving, who considers himself a sneakerhead, many of the shoes he collaborated on with Nike were personal, like his “I Love You Mom” series of shoes.But last year, Mr. Irving went after Nike and a version of his Kyrie 8 shoes, claiming that he was not involved in the design process and that the resulting footwear was “trash.”“Nike plans to release it without my okay regardless of what I say,” Mr. Irving wrote at the time in a post on his Instagram. He added, “So I apologize in advance to all of my sneaker heads and true supporters.” More

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      Seattle Storm’s Sue Bird Ends WNBA Career With Playoff Loss

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      Bird, 41, the Seattle Storm guard, had said she would retire after this season. The Storm fell to the Las Vegas Aces in the W.N.B.A. semifinals on Tuesday.Seattle Storm fans wanted one more year. Sue Bird gave it to them.She slicked back her signature ponytail, laced up her custom Nike sneakers and added to her legend with a farewell tour.When the Storm set a W.N.B.A. single-game assists record for the regular season with 37, eight of them were hers. She stretched her formidable margin as the league’s career leader in assists and inched higher on the steals and 3-point lists. She helped the Storm make the playoffs for the 16th time in the 19 seasons she played.And then she was done.The Las Vegas Aces beat the Storm, 97-92, in Game 4 of their semifinal series on Tuesday to advance to the W.N.B.A. finals. For Bird, 41, who had said in June that she would retire after the season, the loss on her home court marked the end of an incredible career. As fans cheered and chanted “Thank you, Sue,” Bird stood on the court and cried.At a postgame news conference, Bird said that she hadn’t wanted to leave the court so that she could “soak it all in.” She started to cry again. “I know the tears don’t look like happy tears, but there’s a lot of happiness,” she said.Bird retires as the W.N.B.A.’s career leader in assists and games played. She had 8 points and 8 assists against the Aces on Tuesday.Lindsey Wasson/Associated PressAces Coach Becky Hammon said it was “bittersweet” to have defeated Bird to end her “fairy-tale” career. Bird had 8 points and 8 assists in the loss.“I kind of feel like the girl that beat Serena,” Hammon said, referring to Ajla Tomljanovic, who beat Serena Williams in her final match at the U.S. Open last week. Williams had said she planned to retire after the tournament.Storm Coach Noelle Quinn, who also played with Bird in Seattle, called Bird “the best point guard to ever play this game.”Bird won four championships with Seattle, the last in 2020. That season showcased the traits that have come to define her: resilience and keen court vision. She missed half of the regular season with injuries. But she proved invaluable during Seattle’s six postseason games. Seattle never lost during that playoff run. Bird set a then-W.N.B.A. record for assists in a playoff game with 16 in Game 1 of the finals against the Aces. Then she had a double-double — 16 points and 10 assists — in Game 2. In the series-clinching Game 3, Bird spent the end of the fourth quarter on the bench laughing with forward Breanna Stewart. The Storm won by 33.“The fact that I’m sitting here, I think I’m having this, like, in-shock moment, because it doesn’t really feel real that we just won and that I was able to contribute in the way that I did,” she said afterward.Much of Bird’s 21-year career has come as a surprise, if only because there wasn’t enough time for someone to accomplish such feats before her. “I really didn’t know what to dream,” Bird told The New York Times last month, “and so to sit here now with all the championships I have, I just feel really satisfied.”The Storm drafted her No. 1 overall in 2002 out of UConn before the W.N.B.A.’s sixth season. She immediately became Seattle’s franchise leader in assists, with 191 that year. She came in second for the Rookie of the Year Award, but she and the player who beat her — Indiana’s Tamika Catchings — became the first rookies ever named to the All-W.N.B.A. first team.Fans celebrated Bird with signs and T-shirts all season.Steph Chambers/Getty ImagesAmong parting gifts Bird received was this jacket from the Minnesota Lynx’s Sylvia Fowles, who also retired this season.David Berding/Getty ImagesOver the next 20 years, Bird would pile up honors, including a record 13 W.N.B.A. All-Star selections and five Olympic gold medals with the United States. Last year, she was voted to the W25, the W.N.B.A.’s list of the top 25 players ever as the league celebrated its 25th anniversary.“These athletes have played the game at the highest level on the court — they are scorers and rebounders, assist makers and defensive stoppers, leaders and mentors,” W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in announcing the W25. She added, “Together, they have transformed the way the game is played, changed the way athletes are viewed, become incredible role models and inspired generations of young, diverse athletes.”Bird, who is engaged to the women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe, is one of the most visible gay professional athletes. For most of the W.N.B.A.’s history, its most prominent stars were not openly gay, and players have said that they felt pressured to conform to heterosexual standards of femininity. But Bird is among a wave of stars — including Brittney Griner, Seimone Augustus, Elena Delle Donne and Diana Taurasi — who have been open about their sexuality and spoken about L.G.B.T.Q. rights and acceptance.Bird has also used her platform as one of the league’s biggest stars to support social justice causes, especially regarding Black women. And as the W.N.B.A. continues to push for the release of Griner, who has been detained in Russia on drug charges since February, Bird has been vocal.“We all feel rattled by this and just want her home,” Bird said at a news conference with Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, in July.Bird wearing custom Nike sneakers from the signature line of the N.B.A. star Kyrie Irving.Steph Chambers/Getty ImagesBird’s off-the-court influence has gone beyond politics to style. She is known for her love of sneakers, and her custom Nikes — from the signature line of the N.B.A. star Kyrie Irving — have “Keep Sue Fresh” printed on them each night.But the core of Bird’s legacy is on the court.“That’s a legendary player right there,” said Aces guard Chelsea Gray, who scored 31 points and fueled Las Vegas’s victory in Bird’s final game.Stewart, who had 42 points in Game 4 for Seattle, said that knowing it would be her last game with Bird was more “devastating” than losing.“That’s what hurts the most,” she said, adding that Bird had been a mentor and friend.Storm guard Jewell Loyd said the Game 4 loss was “obviously not how we wanted to finish for her.”Loyd added, “We’ve been very fortunate to play with a generational player like Sue.”Bird said though her body felt good, she was not having second thoughts about retiring. But she will miss basketball.“There’s going to be nothing like this,” she said.Bird gave fans someone to believe in until the end. Her final points in the W.N.B.A. came on a layup with 21.8 seconds to go on Tuesday and Seattle down by 6. It was reminiscent of a play on Sunday, in Game 3. The Storm turned to her when they were down by 1 point with less than two seconds to go. She sank a 3-pointer and held her follow-through, as her teammates went wild around her. Seattle would lose to the Aces in overtime, but that play was what this final season was for.One more chance to celebrate. One last moment with Bird.Bird hit a 3-pointer in Game 3 of the W.N.B.A. semifinals against the Aces, giving the Storm a 2-point lead with less than two seconds to go.Lindsey Wasson/Associated Press More

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      Golf Shoes Are Getting a Makeover Thanks to Streetwear and Sneaker Culture

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      If you’ve seen golf shoes on the street, it is because one of the world’s most conservative sports has been getting a fresh look on the course.Streetwear — long the provenance of New York hip-hop and California surf culture — has been making its way to the green grass of golf courses.“Golf has started to get cooler, and it’s become less standoffish because there are parts of the sneaker community that have embraced it,” said Jacques Slade, a sneaker YouTuber and golfer who has been vocal about the need for more golf shoes that reflect sneaker culture.Hip-hop culture and sneakers have always had a close relationship, but the tie between hip-hop and golf might not be too far of a stretch, said Ankur Amin, an owner of the New York streetwear boutique Extra Butter. He said golf’s aspirational appeal has helped its style connect with his customers.“So much that we do in street culture is about pursuit of the good life,” he said, “and so much about golf represents that, the same way Moët & Chandon or Louis Vuitton does.”Tiger Woods, a Nike-sponsored golfer, brought a lot of new fans to the sport in the late 1990s, but dwindling interest in his products during the 2010s paved the way for a streetwear crossover into golf. Nike and a subsidiary, Jordan Brand, began releasing collectible silhouettes as golf shoes, such as the Air Max 1 and the original Air Jordans.Sneakerheads salivated. “You have people that’ve grown up with the Jordan Brand,” said the rapper and golf entrepreneur Macklemore, who has done sneaker collaborations with Jordan. “It makes sense that people are going to go nuts.”Brooks Koepka wore Nike while playing in the 2019 Masters Tournament in Augusta, Ga. Doug Mills/The New York TimesAnd sneaker culture’s grip on golf has only continued to grow. While the pandemic has devastated a number of institutions, it has also boosted participation in golf, as well as other activities conducive to social distancing like running, hiking and cycling, according to the NPD Group, a market research company.“Once golf courses started opening up again, the business just took off,” said Matt Powell, the vice president of NPD Group and an analyst for the sports business, who said participation was also slightly up before the pandemic.Many people bought golf sets at entry-level prices in 2020, he said, an indication that newcomers were picking up the sport. “Any of the beginners who are buying $400 golf sets are not going to drop $120 on golf shoes,” he said. “They’re going to play in sneakers.”Sneakers have always been an overarching part of the millennial generation’s fashion choices, but now some adults in their late 20s and 30s have the disposable income to play golf — or, at least, to try it. Locations of Top Golf and Five Iron Golf, in some ways the sport’s equivalent to bowling alleys, have also opened across the country, which has made elements of the sport more accessible in urban areas where courses are harder to find.“Golf is a game that’s very traditional, but if you look at millennials and all the generations that are following them, they’re never afraid to do something a little bit different,” said Gentry Humphrey, the former vice president of footwear at Jordan Brand who led the company’s entry into the sport.Gentry Humphrey led Nike into the golf market before he retired from the company last fall.Charley Gallay/Getty ImagesBefore Humphrey retired last fall, he also spent time leading Nike’s golf business. Part of Humphrey’s philosophy has been to transform Nike and Jordan sneakers that collectors covet into shoes that can actually be used on the fairway. “Kids are wanting to go out there,” he said, “and they’d rather go out there in something fresh.”Although producing these golf sneakers may seem as simple as adding high-traction soles, there are also other considerations like waterproofing and modifying the cushioning.“We didn’t want it to just be a basketball shoe that moves to the golf course,” Humphrey said, adding that Nike had developed new shoe technologies like the integrated traction bottom — a rubberized outsole without hard spikes that players could wear all day.Another part of Humphrey’s strategy has been to provide a wider platform to start-up golf brands through product collaborations. For instance, Eastside Golf, a brand started in 2019 by the professional golfers Olajuwon Ajanaku and Earl Cooper, who played together at Morehouse College in Atlanta, aims to increase diversity in the sport and introduce younger to it.Earl Cooper, left, and Olajuwon Ajanaku are the founders of Eastside Golf apparel.Julio Cortez/Associated Press“Who said you can’t play golf in a T-shirt?” said Cooper, the first African American all-state golfer in Delaware. “When they created these rules, minorities weren’t even allowed to play. People are trying to hold on to a tradition that was already broken or flawed.”Ajanaku, who designed the trademark for Eastside Golf’s clothing line, which features a Black man in bluejeans wearing a gold chain and baseball cap while swinging a club, said the prominent placement of a person of color on the company’s products was a milestone.“For us to actually have a logo of a Black man playing golf on our clothes speaks to everyone that has not felt welcome in the sport,” he said.Eastside Golf’s logo was shown prominently on the tongue of their Air Jordan collaboration, which used the silhouette of the original Air Jordan IV, a retro sneaker that is highly regarded among sneakerheads. The golf spikes were removable so the sneakers could also be worn off the course.Shoes that are convertible or can transition easily from the green to the clubhouse are one of the key innovations that have helped open up sneaker culture within golf. For fashion-minded individuals, half-inch spikes on the bottom of a sneaker can significantly alter the aesthetic of the shoe. So, brands are increasingly opting for subtle traction on the bottom of their golf shoes instead of straight spikes.“There were so many people buying the golf product collaborations, but didn’t even play the game,” Humphrey said. “My phone was ringing off the hook more for the Eastside Golf collab than for some of the projects we did with Christian Dior. The sport is looking for another shot of energy, and this was a great way to introduce something new to it.”Daniel Berger wearing Adidas during a practice round at the 2022 Masters.Doug Mills/The New York TimesOn tour, eagle-eyed golfers or sneaker collectors may have spotted these shoes on the feet of Bubba Watson, 43, or Harold Varner III, 31, but even younger pros are also bringing a different swagger to the PGA Tour, Slade, the sneaker YouTuber, said. A lot of the players on the tour now, he said, “grew up listening to Travis Scott or Tyler the Creator. They’re coming into this world with a totally different perspective.”Last summer, Extra Butter, Amin’s boutique, collaborated with Adidas on a streetwear golf collection inspired by the film “Happy Gilmore” that included golf shoes, sneakers, balls and putter covers. The store is also introducing new golf-based brands to its inventory, like Radda, Whim and Manors Golf.“From the beginning of hip-hop culture, there’s always been this air of wanting to represent what you aspire to,” said Bernie Gross, Extra Butter’s creative director. “We come from backgrounds that don’t represent this, but this is what we hope to achieve one day. Golf is part of that.”Rappers are also getting into the golf business. Drake launched a 10-piece golf collection with Nike that was worn by Brooks Koepka, a four-time major champion. And Macklemore, the Seattle-based rapper, launched his own golf line — dubbed Bogey Boys — in February 2021.Musician Macklemore, wearing a ‘Bogey Boys’ hat and clothing, played in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at Monterey Peninsula Country Club last month.Orlando Ramirez/Getty ImagesMacklemore started playing just two and a half years ago while on vacation, and was immediately hooked. But even before he hit his first 5-iron out of the fairway bunker, he was thrifting for classic golf looks from the 1970s. He started his independent golf brand because he saw a market in new players who wanted to bring a unique style to their on-course looks.Since its launch a little over a year ago, Bogey Boys, whose looks are inspired by the swag of golfers like Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino, has sold out of its first collection of limited-edition products, partnered with Nordstrom and opened its first retail location in Seattle in September.Still, beyond collectability, style and functionality, Eastside Golf’s founders believe there are bigger takeaways for the conventionalist sport.“Golf can learn from the sneaker culture,” Cooper said. “Sneaker culture is all about individuality. That’s what golf has been missing.” More

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      Julian Gaines Has a Question: ‘How Do I Paint Oregon Black?’

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      In a cavernous studio on a wind farm in Forest Grove, Ore., about halfway between Portland and the Tillamook State Forest, Julian Gaines, an artist born and raised in Chicago, is creating a body of work devoted to Black American life.He starts his workday at 9 a.m. and goes until the work tells him he’s done, creating images of the civil rights movement’s heroes and martyrs, including James Baldwin and Malcolm X, in a state where Black people make up roughly 2 percent of the population, according to the United States Census Bureau.“I can’t complain about an environment that I’m in but not actually try to change it,” said Mr. Gaines, 31, who left Illinois in 2016. “I get out here and I see that Oregon is culturally inept. It is identical to a blank canvas. I think, ‘How do I leave my lasting mark here? How do I plant my Pan-African flag? How do I paint Oregon Black?’”On a recent afternoon, his studio was filled with the sounds of a fellow Chicagoan, Curtis Mayfield. An American flag occupied part of a 30-foot wall. Mr. Gaines lifted the flag to reveal two stark paintings that appeared to depict lynchings. They were part of a recent series, “Under the Flag.” On the other side of the room, there was a canvas, 14 feet wide, called “Better Timing.” It showed the face of Emmett Till, the Black boy from Chicago who was lynched at 14 while visiting Mississippi in one of the most brutal hate crimes of the last century.Artist at work: Julian Gaines in his Oregon studio.Amanda Lucier for The New York TimesMr. Gaines got widespread attention in 2020, when his series “KAREN(S)” was featured on the cover of New York magazine. It was Pop Art with a political edge — a bold image of a white woman holding a phone to her ear, her expression stern, a tear running down her cheek. It evoked a string of incidents involving women who had called the police on Black bystanders: a bird-watcher, a man entering his apartment building, an 8-year-old selling water.“KAREN(S)” owed something to an experience Mr. Gaines went through himself, after a neighbor damaged his car two years ago, he said. When he asked the neighbor, a white woman, to provide her insurance information, she threatened to call the police and report him for elder abuse, he said. As she approached him, ranting and pressing a finger to his chest, he recorded her with his phone. Once the police arrived, Mr. Gaines was able to show them the images on his screen. The neighbor ended up admitting to the police that she had caused the damage to the car, and the officers left soon afterward.“If I did not have that video, who knows what could have happened?” Mr. Gaines said.Nike released a limited-edition sneaker designed by Mr. Gaines in 2017.Amanda Lucier for The New York TimesAfter the incident, the woman sent Mr. Gaines a note of apology: “I am sorry for my actions and unneighborly behavior,” she wrote. The note hangs in his studio.Mr. Gaines has a key supporter in the art collector James Whitner, the chief executive of the Whitaker Group, the company behind the fashion labels A Ma Maniere, Social Status and APB. Works by Mr. Gaines, including “KAREN(S),” appear in Mr. Whitner’s North Carolina home, along with paintings and sculptures by KAWS, Nina Chanel Abney and Jammie Holmes.“He’s speaking to the Black experience, and he’s not blinded by institution,” Mr. Whitner said in an interview. “Some people don’t necessarily get Julian, but I get Julian because for years people didn’t get me.”Last summer Mr. Gaines had his first solo show, “Painting the Blueprint,” at the Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects gallery in Lower Manhattan. In September, “Benji,” his monochromatic rendering of Ben Wilson, a top basketball prospect who was killed in his Chicago neighborhood at 17 in 1984, sold for more than $20,000 at a Phillips charity auction. Mr. Gaines was born on the Southeast Side of Chicago and raised in a building owned by his great-grandmother, Gladys Pelt. His mother, Pamela Robinson, still lives there. An image of the building is tattooed on Mr. Gaines’s right wrist.He was born into a city and a world where Michael Jordan, whose Nike Air Jordans had become a streetwear staple, was everywhere. As a boy, Mr. Gaines loved Nikes, but he got only one pair a year — usually Nike Air Force 1s. He started expressing himself artistically at age 13, when he painted his Nikes to camouflage the wear and tear. In high school he kept at it, decorating classmates’ sneakers and T-shirts, sometimes for a fee.Mr. Gaines’s neckwear includes an easel pendant.Amanda Lucier for The New York TimesHe was also deeply involved in the Trinity United Church of Christ, where a young politician, Barack Obama, was a frequent presence. Mr. Obama’s rise to the presidency helped Mr. Gaines view history as something other than an abstraction.“My church family was really the first people to let me know that I could be a great artist,” he said. “I remember being in the room when Barack Obama was in the early stages of his campaign. Just being there and seeing those things really set a foundation for my work.”In 2010, he accepted a partial scholarship to play football at Northern Michigan University. He thought he had a shot at making it to National Football League, and he saw himself following the path of Ernie Barnes, a pro football player and artist who was often fined during his career for sketching when he should have been at practice. Mr. Barnes went on to make more than $100,000 a year from his art, after his retirement from the N.F.L. His painting “The Sugar Shack” appeared as the cover of the 1976 Marvin Gaye album “I Want You” and as the image shown during the credits sequence of the 1970s CBS sitcom “Good Times.”Injuries put an end to Mr. Gaines’s dream of going pro. So he focused on his art. “I got to see what it means to be a real student and not an athlete,” he said. “In college your time is monopolized if you’re an athlete. I’m really grateful for that injury.”The clothes are stained with paint after another day in the studio.Amanda Lucier for The New York TimesAn older classmate offered to buy one of his paintings for $300. His pastor and family members had purchased his artwork before, but this was the first time someone without a clear rooting interest in his success had become a patron.After graduation, he moved back to his great-grandmother’s place and used the garden apartment as a place to make art. “I wanted to paint myself out of there,” he said in his studio, before taking a drag on a joint.In 2016, before the legalization of marijuana in Illinois, he was arrested during a traffic stop after a police officer said he smelled of marijuana. During the brief time he was in custody, he decided to leave his home state. “I can’t be as creative as I want to be living in an area where my freedom was taken from me because of the way I smell,” he said.Nike, which has its headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., loomed large in his thoughts. He moved to Portland in 2017 and made regular visits to the Beaverton complex, walking seven miles there and back and taking meetings in the cafeteria with whoever would see him. In his studio he keeps a sneaker box filled with 80 visitors’ badges from those days.“You’re supposed to return those badges,” he said. “Most people didn’t know who I was. I knew three people that worked at Nike, and they were not in any position to give me a job.”While trying to join the company in some way, he was building a reputation as a sneaker artist by selling his embellished versions of Nike Air Force 1s to his Instagram followers. Nike hired him as a freelance designer to create a collection especially for people in creative fields.“What I brought to Nike, and they were so gracious to believe in, were shoes for creating in,” Mr. Gaines said. “This is a shoe that embodies me, where I can feel comfortable and stand in the shoe all day.”Mr. Gaines’s recent work on display in his studio, including KAREN(S).Amanda Lucier for The New York TimesHe worked with two Nike models, the 1982 Nike Sky Force ¾ and 1985 Nike Air Vortex, and called the collection Game Worn. Nike released it, in a limited edition at a store in Chicago, in 2017. Since then, LeBron James and Russell Westbrook have been spotted wearing his creations. As part of the sneaker release, Mr. Gaines led a weeklong workshop, backed by Nike, that included art classes at Chicago’s South Shore Cultural Center.“I wanted to do something for the kids in my community,” Mr. Gaines said. “A lot of times children in Chicago live so far from where people are doing these events that they can’t pay $50 or risk their lives taking public transportation to get to the North Side.”Now he is focused on his art as he prepares for a solo show scheduled for August at the Russo Lee Gallery in Portland.“He’s doing it in his own way,” said Gardy St. Fleur, a curator who advises National Basketball Association players on their art collections. “It’s raw and it’s real.”Mr. Whitner, the art collector, thinks there may be something missing in Mr. Gaines’s work — and that once he figures it out, his paintings may become even more interesting.“I don’t think Julian has allowed himself to be vulnerable,” Mr. Whitner said. “I don’t even think Julian has reconciled his feelings about coming from Chicago. And I’m curious to see how that shows up in his work once he does start to really reconcile those feelings.” More

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      Kobe Bryant’s Nike Contract Expired. The Implications Are Complex.

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      The end of the deal has no analogue in basketball or sneaker history, opening a hole in the market as Bryant’s shoes have been used heavily by N.B.A. athletes and have seen high demand among the public since his death.The most popular shoes on the N.B.A. hardwood for the last several seasons were not the signature sneakers endorsed by the top active players, like Nike’s LeBron James or Adidas’s Damian Lillard. They were not the shoes endorsed by the man who practically invented the modern sneaker game, Michael Jordan.Instead they were Nike’s line of Kobe Bryant’s signature sneakers, which were worn by 103 players last season — about 20 percent of the league’s players — according to the sneaker website Baller Shoes DB. Many W.N.B.A. players, like the Seattle Storm’s Jewell Loyd, also wear Bryant’s signature sneakers.But soon those players will need to find new shoes, at least if they want to play in brand-new pairs. Nike confirmed Monday that its contract with the estate of Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash last year, expired last week.“Kobe Bryant was an important part of Nike’s deep connection to consumers,” a Nike spokesman, Josh Benedek, said in a statement. “He pushed us and made everyone around him better. Though our contractual relationship has ended, he remains a deeply loved member of the Nike family.”In the uncertainty over Bryant’s continued endorsement deal for basketball shoes and apparel, a number of issues collide: what professional basketball players wear on the court, the demand from consumers for Bryant merchandise and how a person’s name and image are used, even after their death.Nike has a short window in which it can continue selling the shoes and apparel featuring Bryant that it has already manufactured, but soon that merchandise will disappear from Nike’s website and store shelves.Switching shoe companies is not uncommon for top basketball players, whose sneaker contracts can pay tens of millions of dollars annually and rival or even exceed their N.B.A. contracts in value. Bryant signed with Adidas before he entered the N.B.A., in 1996, then signed with Nike in 2003 after his Adidas deal ended. Even as some major sponsors dropped Bryant when he was accused of sexual assault, Nike, which had signed Bryant shortly before he was arrested, stood by him.The current situation with Bryant’s estate has no analogue in basketball or sneaker history. Signature basketball shoes really only began to gain prominence in the late 1980s, and barely any N.B.A. superstars from that era or later have died, let alone at a young age like Bryant, who was 41.Different versions of Nike shoes were left at a mural honoring Bryant shortly after his death.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesThe closest comparisons are perhaps Chuck Taylor, the namesake of Converse’s famed Chuck Taylor All-Stars, whose shoes remain popular 50 years after his death, or Maya Moore, the W.N.B.A. star and Jordan Brand endorser, who has sat out the past few seasons to focus on social justice. But the strained analogies suggest the past provides little hint of what will happen next.Almost all N.B.A. players are endorsed by one sneaker company or another. But only a handful have lines of shoes named after them, fewer have popular lines that sell tens or hundreds of millions of dollars worth of merchandise annually and even fewer stay popular in retirement. In the 1990s, a handful of W.N.B.A. stars had shoe deals, including Sheryl Swoopes, who was the first female athlete to have a signature basketball sneaker.Nike clearly believed that Bryant’s appeal extended into retirement, signing him to a new five-year agreement on the day of his final N.B.A. game: April 13, 2016. Bryant played his final season in the Kobe 11s, the 11th edition of his sneaker line. After his retirement, Nike released a new line of sneakers styled as Kobe A.D., or anno Domini, the Latin phrase that means “in the year of the Lord.”Nike’s Jordan brand, and its continued release of Air Jordan sneakers, remains quite popular, but as everyday fashion shoes; N.B.A. players rarely wear Air Jordans during games these days. Bryant attempted to buck that trend in retirement, with Nike releasing Bryant “protro” shoes: retro Bryant shoes updated with modern professional performance features.While they were popular with basketball players, Bryant’s sneakers were not always the most popular off the court, worn with jeans or sweats.Before Bryant’s death, the market for his shoes was fairly niche, said Chad Jones, the co-founder of Another Lane, a marketplace for sneaker collectors. “Performance wise, a lot of performance athletes loved Kobe shoes, but fashion wise is really the predictor for how well it will sell to the masses,” Jones said.Nike did not sign Bryant to what is effectively a lifetime contract, like it has done with Jordan and James, raising questions about how much continued value it saw in his name. The Kobe shoes N.B.A. players wore were often limited editions or unique colors that average consumers could not buy, partly explaining why their popularity on the court did not necessarily translate to popularity on the street.Since Bryant’s death, Nike has released new Bryant merchandise, but mostly in limited quantities through its SNKRS app. The shoes have sold out almost immediately, and then showed up for much higher prices on resale markets, leading to accusations that Nike was allowing resellers to profit from Bryant’s death.“When people don’t get them on retail, but on a resale platform for five times or two times the price, they are upset,” Jones said.In a statement posted to Instagram on Monday night, Vanessa Bryant, Kobe’s widow, wrote that she was “hoping to forge a lifelong partnership with Nike that reflects my husband’s legacy,” and hinted that she will find a way to continue to sell Bryant’s products, perhaps in greater quantities.Vanessa Bryant during the memorial for her husband, Kobe Bryant, and their daughter Gianna Bryant last February.Robert Hanashiro/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“My hope will always be to allow Kobe’s fans to get and wear his products,” she wrote. “Kobe’s products sell out in seconds. That says everything.”If Vanessa Bryant cannot come to an agreement with Nike on a new contract, building a new brand around Kobe could be a challenge. Nike, including brands it owns like Jordan Brand and Converse, controls more than half the sneaker market, with companies like Adidas and Puma as distant competitors. Under Armour, which is endorsed by Golden State’s Stephen Curry, has struggled to break through.Many sneakers are promoted through elaborate back stories about how the player inspired specific design details or guided the design process, and through player-focused advertising campaigns.But what really sells sneakers is players’ connection to culture, or the feelings they evoke in potential consumers, not necessarily winning N.B.A. championships or a shoe’s performance features. Allen Iverson’s rebellious, me-against-the-world persona made his “Answer” shoes from Reebok popular sellers in the 2000s, even though he never won an N.B.A. title.Bryant was not always a popular player, and his early shoes were not top sellers. Through repeated trips to China and success in the Olympics he found fame outside of America’s borders, and as he aged a generation of players entered an N.B.A. that revered him.If the year since his death has shown anything, it is that even into retirement Bryant’s popularity was growing as he made new connections in Hollywood, opened a sports academy and became a prominent and vocal supporter of women’s basketball. More