Can an early leak make or break a sneaker before it even releases?
The question, which may be impossible to definitively answer, is one that plagued designers at adidas before officially unveiling the Crazy Explosive, a completely new franchise for basketball that launches next month. The first images of the radical sneaker hit the internet earlier this summer, which led it to be the butt of several jokes and memes on social media.
“When it leaked and when people started putting it on Twitter and going after it, it’s not the way you expect to launch something brand new,” said Jesse Rademacher, adidas Basketball’s design director. The Crazy Explosive is the first project for the brand under his direction. “At the same time, it completely changed the conversation. It made people notice that we were doing something different whether they liked it or not.”
The original brief for the project was to create something totally new in basketball, with design working around the playing style of the Minnesota Timberwolves’ human pogo stick, Andrew Wiggins. This upcoming season, the shoe will also be worn by the likes of Harrison Barnes, Iman Shumpert, Marcus Smart, and Justice Winslow.
Aesthetics aside, there are several technological firsts found in the Crazy Explosive. Here, Rademacher gives us a full breakdown.