Patent leather and rubber soles intertwined and designed to grip the grain of the hardwood. Oh, how sweet it is. Basketball and kicks have had quite the marriage over the years. The love between shoes and ball began with Chuck Taylors long before there ever was a number 23 soaring above the league. Companies like Converse had their time, Adidas had some run and MJ created the era that defined the basketball shoe. In 2010, the new school of kicks deliver a hint of the vintage with a touch of style to meet the needs of your favorite NBA stars.

The Shoes Make the Man

When the Denver Nuggets changed their team colors to an icy blue and yellow, their management team also drafted a young Carmelo Anthony -- a player who had just won an NCAA title. The young and cool tempered Melo inked a deal with Jordan Brand, creating a lineup of shoes as smooth as Melo’s game. The Jordan Brand M6, the latest Melo shoe, was inspired by the high-performance Bugatti Veyron sports car, which has long fluid pieces in its structure. Similarly, the front toe piece of the M6 is one solid piece that contours the sneaker from the toe to the mid-sole.

NBA 2K10 captures the essence of the M6 and puts us directly in Melo’s shoes. You can actually see the panels of the shoe layered piece by piece, which brings the sneakers to life.

The M6 sneakers embody Melo’s all-world game. They represent his silky smooth J and the perfected haircut. They capture his roots, and they symbolize his nationality. They are part three-piece suit and part sweat suit and hoody.

It is easy to forget that not too long ago gamers were usually forced to use the generic white and black sneakers for their created players. However, NBA 2K on the Dreamcast would change things up a bit.

Before Allen Iverson first stepped on an NBA court, he had already established himself as a new breed of point guard at Georgetown. The 6-foot, 183-pound frame with a street baller’s game would become a problem for mainstream America and opposing defenses alike. Tatted up from the neck down, he brought his rap persona to the door of the league and into our living rooms simply because he was too good to be denied. Reebok would debut his first signature shoe dubbed the Reebok Question Mid.

The rookie of the year in the ’96-’97 season would eventually become the cover boy of what the sports-gaming community now considers the king of basketball simulation. NBA 2K on the Sega Dreamcast put AI on the cover and his Answers in the game. The Dreamcast’s superior graphical prowess allowed for the most detailed player models gamers had ever seen at the time, all the way down to the shoes and socks. The Answer 3s would be one of the first official shoes designed for a video game that had such distinctive details.

Following the graphical achievements of the NBA 2K series on the Dreamcast, Nike capitalized with some marketing and shoe-product placement of their own.

Half-man half-amazing, also known as Vince Carter, redefined our conceptions of "flight" a dozen times over his career. The current Orlando Magic guard’s Nike Shox VC IIs were the signature shoe of choice for one of the great dunkers during the prime of his career.

The futuristic contours and the synthetic gray layer that sported smooth black shox springs created the illusion that the shoes could make you jump like VC. And after watching Vinsanity dunk over 7-foot-2 center Frédéric Weis at the Olympics in 2000, many of us had trouble separating imagination from reality.

The 2002 Nike Shox VC IIs were reported by SoleCollector.com to be inspired by a Bentley –- a confluence of beauty, grace and performance. These would be the first Nike Shox to employ full-length shox, with the back four shox connected on one platform divided into two pairs of columns.

The Nike Shox VC IIs would be featured in the earlier NBA Live games on the Playstation 2, making a splash for the All-Star Weekend and Slam Dunk Contest game modes in NBA Live 2005.

Today, NBA Live 10 also features a number of nice sneakers. There are Air Forces, Hyperdunks, Jordans, Reeboks, Converses and Adidas shoes all available in the game.

Returning to NBA 2K10, the Nike Zoom Kobe IVs are designed so well that you might want to try them on after playing a game of 2K on the PS3 or 360. 2K Sports shows them off in this teaser trailer.

Kobe’s footwork in both 2K10 and real life is masterful. During the development cycle of the shoe, Kobe went to Eric Avar of Nike and asked for the lowest cut shoe ever. Avar, a designer who also created classics such as the Air Penny 2s, the Nike Air Zoom Flight 95s and the Nike Foamposite 1, wanted to incorporate some of today’s foot technology in a simplistic approach.

The Nike Zoom Kobe IVs would change the way Nike approached sneakers. After running numerous tests, they began designing the lightest and lowest cut basketball shoe out there.

Built starting from the heel and going to the toe, the shape of the materials contour to the foot. The soccer-inspired heels lock in the heel and build support into the mid-sole. The shoe is sculpted to fit the arch of the foot.

The Zoom Kobe IVs feature the Black Mamba snake-skin scales on the toe. Essentially, with this new design, Kobe looks for added range of motion -- as you can see in NBA 2K10 after watching Kobe’s pirouette and tear drop. Even with the light weight, the shoe provides great support due to its molded fit along the medial and lateral sides of the sneaker.

The final result is a modern, tight fit with groundbreaking support that is matched by a vintage look. Simply put, these are some of the most important sneakers to ever appear in a sports video game.


With all this talk about sneakers, which vintage or new shoes would you want to see in next year’s titles?