Maybe it was the shoes: The legacy of Vince Carters Nike Shox
The Nike Shox achieved mythical status in Sydney during the 2000 Summer Olympics, but the idea for the shoes was born 16 years prior.
In 1984, the foam needed to create the shoe hadn’t been invented yet, but Nike designer Eric Avar, in the late 1990s, brought the shoes to life. Avar and Nike’s creative team were researching astronaut uniforms when the Shox were formed. The upper part of the shoes was designed off of the spacesuits they saw. Avar wanted to keep the upper part of the shoe understated. The heel of the shoe was unlike anything else in the marketplace.
Advertisement
“I believe every shoe should have one bold, iconic expression to it,” Avar said in a Nike release. “Sometimes you can get away with two. Any more than that and it gets too busy and you just don’t know where to focus, functionally or aesthetically.”
The heel has the appearance of rocket booster columns that are prepped and ready for blastoff. To this day, the heel of the Nike Shox is still one of the most recognizable features of any shoe.
By the time Avar and his team finished designing the shoe, Nike didn’t have an athlete who epitomized the marketing strategy they envisioned in the years to come.
Vince Carter signed with Puma in 1998 out of North Carolina. Puma hoped to recreate the magic another UNC alum, Michael Jordan, had with Nike in Carter. No player had worn Puma shoes in the NBA in nearly five years before the company signed Carter to a 10-year, $50 million contract. Carter said he signed with Puma because of the opportunity to have his own signature shoe, which the company promised.
He didn’t play in a pair of Pumas until January 1999 because the NBA had an eight-month lockout during his rookie year. Carter wore the Puma Cell Origin Mids when he took the court and almost immediately created buzz around Puma, himself and the Toronto Raptors. He drove baseline for a double-pump reverse slam against Indiana and posterized Hawks center Dikembe Mutombo in the Cell Origin Mids in some of the notable moments in his rookie season.
Puma unveiled a commercial at the start of Carter’s second season to introduce his first signature shoe with the company, the Vinsanity.
Carter only played a few games in his signature shoe before abruptly terminating his decade-long contract with Puma. There were reports at that time that suggested Carter chose to break his contract with Puma because the company’s shoes were hurting his feet, and he was unhappy with how slowly Puma was moving with releasing the Vinsanity shoes.
Advertisement
Nearly 20 years later, Carter still declined to give specifics of his Puma departure.
“It was just a thing that happened,” Carter said earlier this week. “We parted ways, and I was just thankful that they gave me an opportunity. I was still young. That’s just how it goes. They gave me an opportunity in this league to give me my first signature shoe. Unfortunately, we just had to move on, and they have made their way back into the league with a lot of young talent. I’m happy for them. They’re doing their thing.”
Carter repaid Puma nearly $13.5 million for breaching his contract after the company took him to arbitration. Shortly after leaving Puma, Carter achieved legendary dunker status wearing the AND1 Tai Chis in the 2000 Slam Dunk Contest while he awaited a new sneaker contract.
With Carter firmly cemented as one of the game’s most popular young stars, the shoe companies sent him their top products, which they wanted him to try in hopes they would be the reason he would sign with their brand when it came time to negotiate his next deal. Carter didn’t want to rush into another deal like he did with Puma. Adidas had his cousin Tracy McGrady under contract, along with Kobe Bryant. Carter said there was an opportunity that offseason to join Adidas, but he was waiting for the right one to emerge.
In August 2000, just a month prior to the start of the Sydney Olympics, Nike approached Carter. The difference between Nike and any other shoe company was that it presented Carter with his chance to have a signature shoe immediately — the Shox.
In his two seasons, Carter had established himself as one of the NBA’s highest flyers with unlimited bounce. Avar and Nike’s representatives had found their athlete to represent the Shox.
“It was a match made in heaven,” Carter said. “I don’t recall there being an opportunity to have my own shoe at the time anywhere else. There might have been conversations where they said maybe they’ll create one down the line. The Shox were done years before and they held them until the right time and then boom. That’s how they took off. Maybe if (Nike) presented that my rookie year, I would have been there immediately. I think the shoe was who people saw me as at the time, and they were perfect. It just made sense. A lot of companies told me that they would love to have me, but Nike said, ‘We would love to have you and we have this shoe ready to go.’ You can’t beat that.”
Advertisement
Not even a month later, the Shox BB4, Carter’s first signature shoe with Nike, had its most iconic moment — one that likely will be replayed for as long as basketball exists. Off a steal, Carter jumped over France’s 7-foot center, Frederic Weis, which has been iconized with the Dunk of Death nickname.
“The dunk itself helped make people a believer in what we were trying to sell and what we were trying to sell was cool,” Carter said of how the shoe’s popularity exploded after that.
Carter doesn’t think the Dunk of Death was the reason why the shoes had global success. He thinks it was more because of his frequency of dunks. Nike’s advertising strategy made it appear the Shox would make wearers jump like Carter and add a few inches to their verticals. Nike and Carter even convinced Gary Payton to appear in a commercial in which Payton wore a giant helmet and afro while Carter jumped over him in the Shox and what Nike had now nicknamed the “boings.”
“When they introduced that and came up with ‘boing’ and how they marketed it, that was what people saw in me,” Carter said. “They saw the jumping and the second jump and the dunks. I’m watching commercials back then, and they even convinced me that the shoe could add a couple of inches (to my vertical). It was just so easy for me to take off when I wanted to, and the shoes were so comfortable for me.”
When Kevin Huerter needed a new pair of basketball shoes, he normally would have the same process. He would drag his parents to Dick’s Sporting Goods and pick out the ones that looked the coolest. In fifth grade, Huerter thought the Shox looked the coolest, so he picked out an all-white pair.
At the time, Huerter played two to three years up in age with seventh- and eighth-graders for a travel basketball team his dad coached. Huerter wasn’t as big as the older kids, but he thought his new shoes would give him a boost.
“I thought they would make me jump higher,” Huerter said. “I remember they were the cool shoes back then, so I got them because my friends would see me wearing the Nike Shox, and I thought they would think I was cool.”
Advertisement
The perception of the ability to add a few inches to a player’s vertical was the main selling point for many buyers, including the author of this story, but Carter still laughs when asked about the clever false advertising.
“We wanted you to think that,” Carter he said with a smile. “But to my knowledge, it was just me jumping high myself. That’s what made it cool and made it take off.”
The defining feature of the Shox never changed through the years. The only modification Carter had for his shoes was to widen the toe box because socks are thicker today. He recently tried on a pair of his older shoes and was shocked by how narrow they are and how little space he had. Other than that, it pretty much has been the same, and that has made it easier to bring the shoes back and recreate the release of them because Nike has kept them relatively the same.
Before last season, Carter hadn’t exclusively worn the Shox for roughly eight years, by his own estimate. As Carter started aging, Nike’s production of the Shox declined. He approached Nike last season and asked if the company could bring them back for him as his career was winding down. Conversations were not the smoothest and easiest for Carter when convincing the company to bring them back.
“I was just happy and excited to be back in the shoe because it had been a while,” he said. “To wear them again, it just made me happy. They still felt comfortable. I wanted to wear them again because they were my signature shoe. I wanted to bring them back, and I didn’t know how many years I had left. I wasn’t sure if last year was it. That was my selling point to them; I don’t know if that was the main selling point. After last year, I told them this summer that I had to go out with the Shox. They blessed me with the opportunity.”
What does Carter feel is the legacy of the Shox? He paused for eight seconds and realized he never has thought of the answer to that question. But he hopes the first thing that comes to mind when people think of the Shox is what happened nearly two decades ago.
“What happened in the Olympics, I still can’t explain it,” Carter said with a smirk.
Advertisement
“Maybe it was the shoes.”
(Photo: Erik Williams / USA Today)
ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57kG1pb25nZnxzfJByZmpqX2WDcLnAspmeZZmperit0maroZ1dqLWwsdJmq6GdXaGyqK3CsmSonl2rtq%2BvxGaamqqkmr%2B0ec2iop5lo528uXs%3D