I was actually planning on posting this in a few weeks, but after seeing LaVar Ball talking about those Puma's, I had to throw this out there...
There’s this kid on my son’s 2nd/3rd grade basketball team that is an absolute beast. This kid is a strong 3 foot nothing, but the kid is hitting shots from the three point line and dribbling like Chris Paul. He’s got more confidence than most adults I’ve seen, and, even tho he’s only in the 2nd grade, he’s easily the best player in the league.
One thing I notice…during their first game together…was that the kid was wearing Puma LaMelo ‘Dexters Laboratory’. His step brother, more like a sly beast but not as beastly, is rocking some Puma LaMelo ‘Rick & Morty’…this…in itself isn’t all that crazy. But, it’s something I noticed. Other kids have on Giannis shoes, one kid has just some random takedown...my kid has Huaraches…but…when I looked around the gym at the people in the stands…4th-6th graders, mostly, I noticed an inordinate number of kids wearing LaMelo’s. I wouldn’t really call it a PHENOMENON, but, for the sake of argument, I’m going to call it a phenomenon.
So I started to wonder…how much of ‘nostalgia-based sneaker consumption’ baton is actually being passed on by LaMelo? I see them EVERYWHERE in the gym. As an older sneakerhead, I'm bored with Nike at the moment. And it actually seems somewhat disjointed. There’s no ‘staying power’ with the vast majority of these signature models, so that’s why the youth is still rockin’ our generations J’s: presently, there seems to be nothing interesting enough for anyone to want to cling to, so the zeitgeist has fully been captured by what was interesting in OUR time. And it kinda makes me think of the Jordan effect, in general. Dude was just so good that when he retired, the league took a few years to establish its identity away from him. And in that time, it’s tried to utilize a similar pattern to dissimilar people - so it often doesn’t work.
But...back to LaMelo...these are an undeniable hit right now...arguably Puma's greatest hit since the Clyde. How well will these hold up over time?