It isn’t a surprise to me that Nike is digging into Lebron’s archives; the brand has hit a wall as basketball sneakers are no longer on demand. The best year of Nike basketball since the classic sneakers of the 90’s was between 2009 and 2013. Most of the sneakers that dropped within those years were the last of a dying breed of memorable basketball signature sneakers. Allow me to go back in retrospect and give you a quick glimpse of what we witnessed from 2009-2013: Lebron 8 AS, Lebron 9 Galaxy, KD 4 galaxy, Lebron 8 south Beach, Lebron 9 canon, Foamposite galaxy, kobe 6 grinch, I could go on but I’ll stop here.
Nike hasn’t been able to recapture the rush of emotions those sneakers created. They have been desperately trying to revive the 90’s and it has been a failure. They could’ve regained some momentum with the uptempos but they’ve adulterated those too. So now they are left with only a few options, and one of those options is reviving the Lebron line. So far it has worked in favor of the brand because of scarcity but knowing nike, it’s only a matter of time until they flood the market again with massive numbers of the same model and endless restocks. I was never a fan of the Nike Zoom lebron 3 but I wouldn’t mindNike bringing the shoes back just so I can test them on the court.
I think Nike basketball is officially on its last leg and at this point all the brand can do is ride the waves of “recycling older models” and hope and pray that it catches the consumer at the right time.
img via flightclub.cn
