When James Harden was with Nike, it was largely expected he would be the next athlete with a signature shoe. Reports had it that his new shoe would come out during the 2015 All-Star break.
Instead, Nike decided to make Cleveland Cavaliers star point guard Kyrie Irving their signature shoe athlete instead. Nike received instant success, James Harden left for a huge deal with Adidas and the rest is now history.
Since then, Harden has been repping the CrazyLight Boost shoes for Adidas, their signature basketball shoe. However, it looks like a signature for the Beard is in the works and could release by the 2017 All-Star break.
Here are the full details of the Adidas Harden 1 shoe via Nice Kicks, where they attended a recent #ProjectHarden event:
_ The shoe is simple. Daringly simple. There’s a slanted leather toe cap, a low-cut collar similar to last year’s Crazy Light 2.5 shape, and an off-center asymmetrical lacing setup that leans to the lateral side of the shoe. (Beyond that, it was tough to make out many more details.)
_ The upper features Primeknit in doses, and I’d assume that might vary by colorway. The pair featured in the VR demo was a clean Black/White/Red, with a black collar and heel, and sharply contrasting toe cap, midsole and outsole in white. There were a few red accents throughout. The shoe will look awesome on court from afar, with a clean and sharp court block._ It has full-length Boost cushioning. As you can imagine, Harden’s shoe will be prominently featured this season by adidas, so it’s only right that the brand equip it with its best cushioning platform.
_ The Boost is encased. While we’ve seen Boost can be colored to black or red on the Uncaged UltraBoost running shoe, it’s sounding like hued Boost is still far away for Basketball. So the Harden 1 looks to incorporate a rubberized housing of the Boost. The housing appears to split at the midfoot, so the Boost section can be colored in the front half, and then take on a different color in the heel half, allowing for a variety of colorblocks.
_ We’ve been under the impression the Harden 1 won’t be releasing until early 2017, and likely around All-Star Weekend, but at the end of the demo video, as the shoes were on my own feet, James joked, “I’m gonna need those back. You can get yours in December.” So, expect the brand to launch some kind of early release just at the end of this calendar year in December, clearly.
_ Adidas will be posting updates on the Harden 1 throughout the year, and you can follow along on the @ProjectHarden Instagram account. Stay tuned!!
Harden is clearly the face of the Adidas Basketball brand. Damian Lillard and Derrick Rose already have signature shoes with the company, as well as Minnesota Timberwolves’ Andrew Wiggins getting his own PE. It was only a matter of time Harden gets his own shoe.
Are you excited about this release? Do you plan to cop this sneaker?