My Mount Rushmore Of Basketball Shoes

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You never really know what to expect on a Monday morning in the office. One second you’re talking about whether a WNBA player will ever land a million dollar contract, and the next you’re knee deep in a heated debate about the greatest basketball shoe of all time. And why? Because I had the audacity to say that the Sabrina 1s are the best basketball shoe in the game right now. That was all it took for the boys to start flipping through their mental yearbooks and ranking the sneakers that defined their youth.

I’ll admit my list is heavily influenced by generational bias. These are the shoes my friends and I either wore or desperately wanted during our middle school (2010) and high school (2017) years. These kicks weren’t just shoes they were eras.

Hyperdunks:

Jesse D. Garrabrant. Getty Images.

Objectively speaking, the Hyperdunk is the greatest pure basketball shoe of all time. You weren’t wearing these to the club, but you damn sure had them on during school on Fridays, ready to hoop as soon as the last bell rang. They weren’t made to be flashy or fashionable. They were made to hoop. If you ever played ball, you’ve owned a pair of Hyperdunks at some point. It’s basically a rite of passage.

KD 4

One of my all time personal favorites. The KD 4s weren’t just a good looking shoe, they had aura. When they dropped in 2011, KD was erupting onto the scene as one of the league’s most electric scorers. If he was putting up 28 a night in them, you better believe we wanted to lace up in them too. That era of basketball was special. As a Heat fan, I had LeBron, Wade, and Bosh, but as a basketball fan, watching KD, Russ, and Harden tear it up in OKC was unreal. The KD 4s captured all of that.

Kobe 6

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RIP Kobe. The Kobe 6s were a must have when they dropped, and they still are today. The “snake skin” exterior paired with iconic colorways, like the Reverse Grinch or, more recently, the Cookie Monster colorway that Caitlin Clark has been rocking prove that this line isn’t going anywhere. In terms of performance? One of the best low tops ever. Clean, light, and built for buckets.

LeBron 8

This one is pure, unfiltered bias. The LeBron 8s will forever mean everything to me. I remember exactly where I was when LeBron announced he was taking his talents to South Beach. That moment alone was enough to make any 11 year old kid lose his mind. But then Nike dropped the South Beach LeBron 8s and it was over. That shoe was Miami. The colorway, the vibe, the hype, it all perfectly captured that era. To this day, it’s my favorite Miami inspired shoe of all time.

Editor's Note: Sighhhhh