Based on yesterday’s post…I thought I was clever: “HA! Look how LAME LeBron is no one even knows what his championship shoe was! We ALL know MJ’s shoe!’
But then it hit me. Who in the hell do I think I am?
I’ve been a Warrior fan for the better part of 40 years - and the Warriors won their first championship of my lifetime in 2015 off the back of a Mr. Steph Curry. As a lifelong Warrior fan, I LOVE saying this - but I wasn’t sold on Curry until that season as he was perpetually injured. But, I digress.
So…I was actually AT the championship game watch party at Oracle in Oakland - despite the fact they won it in Cleveland…and I think I even made a post on IG FROM the game…and…still…I couldn’t even tell you what Steph was wearing on his feet. I THINK he was wearing some Under Armor Curry II’s - the white and blue and gold pair - but I wouldn’t put money on it. (Just googled it - looks like it was the Curry 1 - Side point: HOW LIONIZED WOULD THE JORDAN 1 OR THE LEBRON 1 be if they ACTUALLY won a championship in their FIRST SHOE???)
It’s easy for me to say ‘well these moments nowadays just aren’t as special as the moments that I remember from when I was a kid’ but that almost feels like a cop-out.
Seems there’s either one of two things going on here:
1. Either I’m not as much of a sneakerhead as I claim to be (a ‘savant’? Hardly lol)
Or
2. The lore of players and their shoes is more attributable to the marketing power of brands that it is the actual achievements themselves.
In every major sport - in every year, someone wins a championship - why is it that our collective consciousness for championship sneakers only comprises of maybe 5 shoes over the past 50 years?