The Top Sneaker Stories of 2017

Lonzo, LiAngelo, and LaMelo may have been the vehicles, but LaVar was the driver. The elder Ball turned his fledgling company, Big Baller Brand, into a household name in 2017, thanks largely to the platform Lonzo provided en route to becoming the number-two pick of the 2017 NBA Draft. But for better or worse, by the time the draft rolled around, it was LaVar (and Big Baller Brand) that had everyone’s attention.

The brand’s biggest move came as speculation was running high as to which sneaker company would land the future lottery pick—a signing that LaVar famously declared would cost a billion dollars. When reports hit that Nike, Adidas, and Under Armour would pass on the opportunity, Big Baller Brand shocked the world by unveiling its own signature sneaker for Lonzo, dubbed the ZO2, despite having no footwear experience as a company. Oh yeah, it also cost $500, had to be paid for by June, and wasn’t scheduled to ship until November. Later, they totally scrapped the Z02 and sent out a remixed version instead, and dropped a $400 signature model for LaMelo.

The shoes were ridiculed for their price tags and resemblance to other brands’ designs, but the story was never what the shoes looked like as much as what they represented: LaVar Ball doing things his way.

Does anyone remember how tepid Adidas product was about five years ago? Sure, the brand had the occasional interesting collaboration, but so many of the sneakers it put out in the early part of this decade were just plain forgettable. Nike’s dominance in the U.S. marketplace felt like a foregone conclusion, especially with its quarterly reports boosted by millions of dollars in sales from retro Jordans. Adidas was down, but not out. Through a series of smart marketing moves and excellent product lines, the brand built itself back up. The story of Adidas’ resurgence stretches beyond 2017, but perhaps its most internally celebrated marker of recent success came when an August report put it ahead of Jordan as the No. 2 sportswear brand in North America.

How did it happen? For one, Adidas figured out how to better manage the clout of its archive, breathing new life into styles like the Superstar and Stan Smith that helped re-establish them as lifestyle staples. It also opened up a new lane in the sports style sector with its supremely comfortable Boost line of sneakers. And yes, Kanye West had something to do with it too.

While Adidas has soared in the past few years, Jordan Brand has felt more and more stagnant. It’s had plenty of limited releases that made noise in sneakerhead circles this year (Kaws’ collaborations, the Gatorade pack, and the “Top 3 Gold” Jordan 1s to name a few), but its general release fare has lost some of its luster. Of course, this fight is far from over—Adidas now has to prove it can sustain its growth while Jordan Brand retools its products to inject more exclusivity around retros. Oh, and don’t forget about Nike, parent company to Jordan, which is still the No. 1 sneaker brand in North America by a large margin.

Nike may still hold a massive advantage when it comes to overall market share in the U.S., but make no mistake—it’s been soundly beaten by Adidas over the past few years when it comes to hype, thanks mostly to Kanye West’s highly influential Yeezy line. That, combined with the popularity and comfort of Boost cushioning, created the perfect storm to win over the hearts and minds of the sneakerhead, and make meaningful gains in actual stock price. So it’s a bit ironic that Virgil Abloh, an associate of West, would be the one to help pull Nike out of its hype rut with release of 2017’s “The Ten” collection.

Rumors of a Nike x Off-White (Abloh’s fashion label) collaboration began back in December 2016 when pairs of Air Force 1s sporting the collection’s now-signature aesthetic were spotted at Miami’s Art Basel. The hype reached new levels when, months later, an Air Jordan 1 featuring similar design details was tied to the project. As more and more silhouettes leaked, it became clear that this was major project for all parties involved. By the time “The Ten” was officially unveiled in August, it had easily already become the most hyped footwear of the year.

The collaboration is commendable for its consistency, lacking any major misses—a true feat for a 10-shoe collection. There were a few standouts however: both the Air Jordan 1 and Presto competed for top spots on many year-end lists.

Nike’s endorser roster still hasn’t recovered from losing the biggest asset in entertainment marketing when Kanye West jumped ship to Adidas in 2013, but the brand has taken steps to ensure the next big one doesn’t get away. Nike secured the services of two such musicians in 2017 in Travis Scott and Kendrick Lamar.

Scott had formerly been associated with Adidas and was frequently seen in Three Stripes gear. While not wearing the brand exclusively, he performed at Adidas events and released a music video that felt an awful lot like an Adidas ad. But after being tapped by Nike for its VaporMax campaign, he left no doubt as to where his (paid-for) allegiance lie, taking shots at Adidas in the process in an Instagram rant where he clowned non-Nike Boyz who were "still in them weak ass 3 Stripes." This was followed up by a friends and family-exclusive “Cactus Jack” Jordan Trunner LX and a collaborative Air Force 1 that first launched at ComplexCon.

Meanwhile, Lamar used a more subtle approach to signaling the end of his partnership with Reebok by posting a picture of himself wearing the Nike Cortez on social media along with the #teamnike hashtag. While we’ve seen a few different samples of a coming Kendrick Lamar x Nike Cortez, the first pair isn’t scheduled to hit retail until Jan. 28.

“Eventually everyone who wants Yeezys will get them,” Kanye West said in 2015, promising that a day would come where successfully purchasing a pair of sneakers from his Adidas line didn’t feel like winning the lottery. Did anyone actually believe him then? Probably not. But in 2017 that came true, kind of: Adidas has continued to produce more and more pairs of Yeezy Boosts. On top of that, the Yeezy Powerphase, a Calabasas-branded model that pulls from Adidas’ archive, was even more readily available. He even released his latest silhouette, the 700 “Wave Runner” on a pre-sell basis, tallying up orders to be fulfilled at a later date rather than setting aside a certain amount for sale.

Sure, this may have foiled the plans of some resellers who wanted to get rich quick off flipping Yeezy Boosts, but Adidas hasn’t totally diluted the scarcity around the shoes. Certain pairs still go for big money, while others are more accessible—as it should be.

Make no mistake about it, West’s Adidas Yeezy sneakers still aren’t exactly easy to buy. For the most part, you’ll have to wake up early, or sign up for a raffle, or get lucky on the Confirmed app to secure a pair. But at least now it feels like you have a chance.

Like it or not, everything is political in 2017. If the social media intern who works for the company that makes your favorite candy bar unknowingly retweets a message from an alt-right sympathizer, a boycott is sure to follow. If a professional athlete identifies with the wrong cause in a post-game interview, there will be thinkpieces to follow. And if a sneaker brand has any connection at all to President Donald Trump, a lot of people are going to be upset about it.

The world got a little preview of this at the end of 2016 when a New Balance exec said in a statement that the brand felt things would move in the right direction under Trump's reign, sparking social media outrage. In 2017, Under Armour found itself in a similar predicament once when people realized its CEO, Kevin Plank, was on the president’s American Manufacturing Council. So great was the fallout—top UA endorsers like Stephen Curry and Dwayne Johnson questioned Plank’s judgment in aligning with Trump—that the exec eventually left his post on the board.

More than that, brands have been on the offensive in the face of controversial decisions by Trump and his administration. After the Muslim ban, Adidas, Asics, and Nike all issued statements condemning the executive action. Brands similarly followed suit after Trump decided to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord agreements. Nike has perhaps been the most vocal in these efforts with its Equality campaign, which alluded less to the current administration and more to institutional racism and discrimination long embedded in American life.

2017 marked the beginning of Nike's eight-year licensing deal with the NBA. Taking over for Adidas as the official outfitter of the league and having some of the biggest endorsers in the game like Kevin Durant and LeBron James, Nike turned a lot of heads with it's updated uniforms, warm-ups, and officially-licensed NBA footwear.

Although, not all of it was the kind of attention Nike was looking for—several players had their fancy new Nike jerseys ripped during games. From Nike marquee athlete LeBron James' jersey splitting right between the numbers on opening night, to Draymond Green's shirt basically disintegrating during a scuffle, it was a rough start to the Nike x NBA deal that put the quality of the products in question. Nike went as far as to issue a statement about the tearing jerseys in the NBA and said that it was working on fixing the issue. 

Despite this issue, Nike's made plenty of moves to sustain excitement around its new NBA product. This month, it gave a glimpse of the City Edition uniforms that each NBA team will wear later in the season. There was also a slew of NBA-affiliated Air Force 1s NikeId options and released this year. We even saw an NBA-licensed Nike x Supreme shooting sleeve made available in limited quantities and actually worn in an NBA game. If its moves during the initial months of the eight-year deal are any indication, Nike will be more than willing to shake up convention in the league.

Kyrie Irving’s 2017 was nothing if not interesting. Over the course of the year, he became a celebrity supporter of the flat Earth movement, lost an NBA finals, requested a trade in order to lead his own team, acted as a spokesperson for veganism, moved to Boston, and questioned Christmas' validity as a holiday. And along with all of that, had also the top-selling performance basketball shoe on the market.

Nike Brand President Trevor Edwards revealed during the brand’s Q3 2017 earnings call that the Kyrie 3 had taken over the top position as of March. That shouldn’t come as a big surprise either—Irving was fresh off hitting one of the biggest shots in NBA Finals history during the Cavs’ 2016 title run and plays an exciting style of basketball. But perhaps even more importantly, it was been the most affordable signature model in Nike’s basketball line at $120 for a long while. (Paul George's $110 PG1 that debuted in February has since taken that title.)

Time will tell if Irving is able to lead his own team to the same success he found with fellow Nike signature athlete LeBron James, and whether his controversial world views (pun intended) will turn fans off. Nike, however isn’t waiting to see, and is doubling down on the success of the line by producing an even more affordable offering priced at just $80.

Dad shoes aren’t exactly a new thing. They are, after all, named after a style worn for years by fathers across the world—Nike’s Air Monarch has been a top seller through four generations of the model. But 2017 marked their transition from a fringe ironic fashion statement to a full-fledged trend.

The interesting aspect of this trend is that it has been a high-fashion outlier of the sneakerhead world for some time. Lanvin has been a source of bulky tech-fashion runners for years, as has Adidas’ own collaboration with Raf Simons. Hype from the latter’s Ozweego 3 finally pushed the style over the edge this year, leading to a wider acceptance. From there, a duo of Kanye West designs in the form of the Wave Runner 700 and Desert Rat 500 helped solidify the style as one that would be sticking around and even reaching aspirational status.

It’s only right that a collaborative edition of arguably the ultimate dad shoe would materialize as well. Concepts’ Deon Point teased a Concepts x Nike Air Monarch 4 earlier in the year that was later fully revealed by Jordan Brand’s Frank Cooker. Dad shoes went obnoxiously high end, too, thanks to the Balenciaga Triple S, an unfortunate model that retailed for an absurd $850. Though it’s future is uncertain, these moments truly brought the “Dad Shoe” thing full circle.