Posted on 12/19/2003 8:31:16 AM PST by the_devils_advocate_666
BEAVERTON, Ore. -- In his school, LeBron James wore the signature shoe of his idol, Michael Jordan.
Now fans can wear James' shoe.
Nike launches the product endorsed by the Cleveland Cavaliers' rookie Saturday, and store managers nationwide are expecting teenagers to sleep outside, just as they did for debuts of the Air Jordan line.
James' shoe launches in 2,225 stores nationwide, starting at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, when New York City's Foot Action opens its doors.
"You could call it the Harry Potter of sneakers," said Jamelah Leddy, a sportswear analyst with McAdams Wright Ragen Inc. in Seattle.
The hype has spilled from TV talk shows into Web sites, including e-Bay, where 54 of the embargoed $110 pairs are selling and bids approachd $200. In November, when Portland's Niketown offered a limited edition of the shoe, the sneaker sold in 18 minutes, leaving a line of teens still waiting outside.
What's the appeal? "Obviously, it's LeBron," 15-year-old Peter Koehler explained. "People will buy Jordan even if they don't like the way it looks -- because it's Jordan."
It's an insight clear to those who labor behind the locked doors of Nike's "Innovation Kitchen" in Portland. In a room stuffed with easels, designers struggled to graft James' star appeal onto a sneaker.
"This is a watershed project," said Tinker Hatfield, Nike's chief designer, who created the Air Jordan prototype two decades ago. "We're taking everything we learned and applying it."
Under Hatfield's direction, each Air Jordan prototype shoe mirrored a different aspect of his personality. The panther he loved, the fighter jet he admired, even his Ferrari, all became design elements, translated into color schemes and lines.
First launched in 1984, Air Jordans became so popular that by 1998, Nike agreed to move launch dates to Saturdays so students wouldn't skip school to line up at stores.
When James signed a reported $90 million endorsement deal with Nike, it ended a bidding war that included Adidas and Reebok.
But Nike wasn't waiting for the deal to be signed to try to figure out how James' personality could be sewn into a shoe. At the time, James was driving a $50,000 Hummer, which he said was a birthday gift from his mother.
"The original Hummer is pure utilitarianism. Pure function. No luxury -- like his game," said 35-year-old Eric Avar, one of the two other designers.
The designers made more than 100 sketches, producing a design in which the Hummer appears as the metaphor throughout _ from the metallic lace holes, which mirror the shape of the vehicle's wheel, to the chevron sole, a reference to the Hummer's tire tread.
But after all that work and attention to detail, it really doesn't matter what the shoe looks like, analysts and basketball fans say.
"Everything that has to do with LeBron is popular -- it's not just the shoe," said Romain Rousseau, co-founder of Basket-ball.com. He says the player's name has been the most popular key word on his Web site since the NBA draft.
HA!
Cute...very "deep," too.
Lemme guess.
...you're the *gifted* one of the family, eh? :o)
As mornings go cy, they don't get much better than Saturdays, y'know.
Suggestion.
How 'bout another cup of java?
...on me & I'll pour. {g}
Wonder where Hildebeast is? Nevermind don't want to ruin my Saturday morning...
Aww, nuts!
...I wuz hopin' for a pair of them LeBron James sneakers!
Yeah, you probably should and no it's not okay. I have no problem whatsoever with needy people receiving public assistance. However, when people as able bodied as I are on the public dole walking around in designer clothes and gold jewelry, I have to wonder why they can't feed their own kids or pay for their own healthcare.
Don't know about that--I live in NW Indiana which is a seriously economically depressed area since the steel mills went down the tubes.
As you said, it is a matter of priorities. I still have a rabbit ear antenna for my TV. I would much rather pay my electric bill than have cable, but I work with people who have had their water and telephone shut off while they still maintain their Direct TV!--go figure.
Absolutely. The free-lunch kids get dropped off at school in new Cadillacs. I stand behind people in grocery store checkouts with my hamburger meat, watching them pay for hundreds of dollars worth of overpriced junk food, pre-cooked food, etc., with food stamps. And our taxes are constantly jacked so the whole mess can be expanded to a grander scale.
Meanwhile, someone who was simply born with the ability to bounce a ball and toss it through a ring, gets paid $90,000,000 to say he LIKES a shoe.
Our society is a mess.
MM
Dear MM
You just hit one of my many hot buttons. As much as I hate to sound like an old fart, I have seen our society and basic decency dissipate before my eyes in the last 30+ years. It breaks my heart to think of the world that my grandchildren will live in years from now.
There will always be those who say, "Yeah, but society has always been in a state of change." Change, yes. Unraveling at the seams? NO. We're in a mess.
MM
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