Peak Performance?

Alright, I know I'm late on this, but wtf is PEAK? I've tried digging and googling this brand, but all I can find is a company that formerly made Nike knockoffs and reports of Peak and the NBA making some partnership agreements last year. And wtf is J Kidd doin? Leaving the almighty swoosh for some strange Chinese brand? No offense to the Chinese of course.... I love team China! And well of course, they make the majority of the shoes that I love. So I dont have any doubts that PEAK has the ability to produce high performance shoes for a high performance athlete like Jason Kidd, but what I do question is the sports culture, design culture and marketing culture. I can already tell by looking at these shoes on J's feet that they're missing the mark.

Shane Battier also wears PEAK.

Hyperdunk Animation

hyperdunk animation from videos222 on Vimeo.

Zoom Lebron VI

Lebron officially unveiled the Zoom Lebron VI yesterday and plans to wear them if Team USA makes it to the gold medal game. The VIs are said to be the lightest Lebron shoe made to date.

6 Rings Concords

I am not a huge fan of hybrids even though they actually come out with some decent franken-creations. These 6 Rings have gotten my attention. I admit... I'm an absolute sucker for the concord colour-up... I don't care.. these are NICE. And I'm a HUGE fan of the AJ 13 midsole outsole... the paw-like feel really works well on the court. Anyway.. i think these would be a fantastic option for ballers to rock on the hardwood.... NO ONE is going to take their Concord 11s outta deadstock storage to ball in... why not rock these and look just as good instead.

21 Mercer Lunar Racer

These are absolutely beautiful shoes. They're even better when displayed together like this. You can check them out in person exclusively in New York.. at the new 21 Mercer Nike Sportswear Store.

Dwight Update

So I just finished watching USA vs Spain (btw... it is friggen impossible to find a replay of the olympic basketball games online!) and noticed Dwight runnin up and down the court with a new pair of kicks. I think these are a slight improvement... have no clue of what they are.. they're still boring... Dwight still needs some Superman shoes. He's prolly the most marketable centre of all time! In terms of footwear anyway... better than Shaq, better than Yao.

Dwight Howard's shoes are wack.

Aight, check this pic out. If you've been following the USA men's basketball team at Beijing, you've probably noticed that 11 of the 12 players are sponsored by Nike or some form of Nike (D-Wade is with Converse). So who's left out? Non other than SuperMan... aka Dwight Howard. So take even a closer look at this pic.. notice how the guys are all lined up from tallest to shortest.. except Dwight's kinda breakin that rule being in the front.. and then there's Coach K conveniently sitting in front of Dwight covering his shoes. Oh and Dwights got a ball in his arms so he cant put his hands behind his back so instead he covers the swoosh on his shorts.

Ok ok, so this is totally a staged photoshoot. Its totally normal that they work out all these details. The point i wanna make is that Adidas only has Dwight to rep their kicks.. one shoe.. and what do they give him? Dang fugly clunkers is what. Actually they're called Rapid Bounce Olympic PEs. Even the name is wack. When I saw Dwight runnin down the court with these on it looked like he was wearin his dad's shoes from the 80s.. but not in a good way like Sheed and his AF1s... more like what Napoleon Dynamite's uncle would wear playing football by himself.

I'm thinkin.. Adidas, WTF are you doin?! I had to get a closer look. Okay, so the Rapid Bounce look a lil better up close and they have Bounce technology (of course) in the rearfoot midsole. I wouldn't say i have a problem with that.. the rear midsole and heel area look interesting.... its the upper.. it still looks MAD WACK. That and whoever coloured these backward shoes up are just as backward. Seriously.. rather than makin him feel SUPER, i think these k

icks are making Dwight feel DEPRESSED. its a

ffecting his game! he looks kinda sad over there in Beijing... while all the other stars are gettin 2-3 different versions of shoes to wear, Dwight's stuck with these sad joints. Come on Adidas go to China and surprise super man with some super sneaks!

He would even be better off his his all-star kicks.. the Bounce Artillery.

Lil Penny

Is that Tyra? Dang.. i dont ever remember this commercial having so much sexual innuendo.

1996 Playoffs Lil Penny NBC Intro

I MISS THE NBA ON NBC.

Mmmm... Delicious!

Get HYPE

Watch the Road To Redemption vids.. they'll get you AMPED. Dang.. i love those old skool highlights of the Dream Team.

Yeezy

Another much anticipated release are these Nike Air Yeezys. There's been a ton of banter concerning these shoes.. and with just as much praise of how they look, there's been plenty of hating. Say whatchu will about them.. but it really is a dream team type of collabo. Like when Jordan and Tinker got together... only this time the star is also the designer. Kanye is super artistic and drew these bad boys himself. When was the last time Nike let a hip hop star design his own shoes?? Jordan doesn't even do that... well.. he gets to have input and such.. but he's not the one putting pencil to paper. The Air Yeezy deserves respect.

If you look closely at the midsole, you'll probably notice that its the AJ3/Air Revolution midsole. So Ye didn't exactly start from scratch.. but hey.. you try designing an upper.

No one really knows the release date.. but Ye himself says they droppin in November in this freestyle. If you cant listen through the whole thing.. i think they start talkin bout Nikes at around the 6:40 mark.

Pegasus

Dang, these joints bring me back to grade 6! I never understood the 2 different colours in the midsole.. the grey in the heel and white in the forefoot. I remember that they were definitely 2 different types of foam.. perhaps dual density. But this would not make sense if they were trying to make a motion control shoe. Perhaps the grey area simply encapsulated the air unit... both indicating this aesthetically and optimizing the use of the air unit using a different foam.. thus improving the heel strike and giving the runner an overall plusher ride. OK.. that was a bunch of BULL!! I just remember loving the colour scheme (wht/grey/blue) and the grey part of the midsole made this shoe interesting.. it always made me want to press into it.. and even cut into it.. cuz i wanted to know what the air inside looked like. AIR was just so darn NEW and AMAZING back then.
The retros will be releasing early next year.

Here's a pic of the OGs.

I Got Skeellz

KixandtheCity.com: McFly Nike Hyperdunk Release

The hype on this release is just incredible. There really hasn't been this much excitement surrounding a sneaker release in a long time.. and to think its for a newly designed performance basketball shoe too. Just amazing. This could be a turning point for future releases and how brands take on new projects.

On another note: whats the deal with the babies in the line up?? dang man, that just ain't right.