David vs. Goliath: A Moment of Weakness in the Sneaker Wars By Albert Contreras Jr

The 2019 NBA Finals is truly a David versus Goliath matchup. I’m not talking about Canada on the verge of being the first non-US city to win an NBA Championship, or the Warriors dynasty against an all-in team that has been assembled for one run at the title with non-lottery picks. This isn’t about an unlikely trio of Kawhi Leonard, Kyle Lowry, and Pascal Siakam trying to beat an all-star lineup of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, and Demarcus Cousins. And this piece isn’t about the Warriors dealing with injuries to Kevin Looney, Thompson, Durant, and Cousins, or Curry’s fever in Game Three. This is about Nike versus the field. This is about an NBA Finals where three of the four best players on the court are represented by non-traditional shoe companies.

Nike, Jordan, and Adidas have been THE dominant sneakers in the NBA for the last 20 years, but this Finals the best players are not signed to any of them. Shout-out to the run Reebok had with Allen Iverson in the early 00’s. Steph, Kawhi, Klay, and Draymond are the four best players in the series and only Draymond is signed by Nike.

Steph Curry inked a deal with Under Armour in 2013 after he left Nike. Since then, Curry has released five signature shoes and expanded both his brand and Under Armour’s. Kawhi Leonard left Jordan in 2018 for New Balance over a lowball offer from Jordan. Since then, New Balance has revamped their entire basketball line with Leonard at the center of the, “We Got Now” campaign. Klay Thompson signed with a Chinese Sneaker Company named Anta in 2013. In 2016, Klay signed a ten-year shoe contract that could pay him over 80 million dollars.

Curry, Thompson, and Leonard are three of the four best players in these finals and none of them are signed by Nike. Of course, I haven’t mentioned Kevin Durant; more on him later. So, if we go back ten years of NBA Finals and look at the top 4 players in each series, we can visualize Nike’s dominance:

*It was tough to come up with the 4th best player in the ’09 Finals. The candidates include: Rashard Lewis, Andrew Bynum, Lamar Odom, or Sasha “The Machine” Vujacic. A real murderers’ row of “damn-what-happened-to-him” guys.

Nike looms over this piece though. If you are a sneakerhead, or basically a living being, you understand that Nike isn’t going anywhere. Nike owns the rights to NBA jerseys, they have signed almost every other great player in the NBA, and they have been synonymous with basketball since they signed Michael Jordan. Also, the Jordan Brand is a subsidiary of Nike which reinforced its Goliath-like position in NBA sneaker culture. Kevin Durant is signed by Nike, but he has been unable to play through the first four games of these finals. He looms over the NBA Finals, just like Nike looms over the entire sneaker industry.

So what does this all mean?

Is Nike about to be brought down like Goliath when David hit him with that rock? It is certainly possible, since Nike did not have the foresight to maintain their relationship with Curry, Thompson, and Leonard. Although, this whole point might be moot five years from now, but having three of the top players wearing non-traditional brands on the biggest stage feels like a moment. Nike is the iconic shoe in sneaker culture, but right now they are not represented in the NBA FInals. This year’s matchup between the Golden State Warriors and the Toronto Raptors already feels like an outlier in the grand scheme of basketball history. Kawhi Leonard and Kevin Durant are both free agents with NBA analysts (including myself) predicting they both leave their teams. The injuries to Durant, Thompson, and Cousins all seem like the worst-case scenario for Golden State. I mean, we have seen a Box and 1 defense in the NBA, a concept that is taught to kids. Basketball and Nike are synonymous but right now three of the best players are wearing Under Armour, New Balance, and Anta.