Sneakerheads have another reason to watch Thursday night’s Lakers game against the Mavericks.
Not only is the best team in the West playing basketball once again, but LeBron James is apparently debuting his latest signature sneaker — the LeBron 18 — tonight in Orlando, according to a report from ESPN’s Nick DePaula.
It’s rare that we’d ever get a look at a LeBron James signature shoe this early in the year, but it’s also extremely rare that we actually see NBA basketball being played in July.
Typically, James first debuts his latest signature shoe when the NBA season first begins in the fall. But the design process is almost always completed in the middle of the summer.
Now, because fall basketball is being pushed back and James is playing games in the summer, James is debuting his shoe in July.
Nike released an early sketch of the shoe’s design and it’s not that far removed from the look of James’ LeBron 17.
First look at the Nike LeBron 18, sketched by Jason Petrie.@KingJames is expected to debut these today. Shoe features heel Max Air *and* a full-length Zoom Air unit — a first. pic.twitter.com/fUmNs6jQer
— Nick DePaula (@NickDePaula) July 23, 2020
James also gave fans a bit of a sneak peak on Wednesday when he was pictured actually wearing the shoes in practice.
It’s hard to judge these shoes based off of the current looks we have. The black pair James wore at practice looks solid, but every shoe always looks better on foot.
The sketch provided by Nike looks like some sort of weird fusion of a baseball cleat on the forefoot and a basketball shoe with an air bubble on the heel. It’s kind of wonky.
The best look we’ll get is on Thursday night when James actually wears them on court. We’ll see what they’re hitting on then.
Either way, they won’t be available for the public until September.
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