Kawhi Leonard is one of the ten best players in the NBA, a back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year winner and a legitimate MVP candidate. Parts of that previous sentence used to be pretty controversial even after he won the NBA Finals MVP award back in 2014 when he led – yes, he “led” on a squad that includes future Hall of Famers Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili – the San Antonio Spurs to their fifth championship in franchise history. He hasn’t always grabbed the alpha dog title since that honor – injuries and the way the Spurs work will do that – but the 2015-16 season has proven that even after The Big 3 moves on, the franchise is in good hands with Leonard and fellow Jordan Brand athlete LaMarcus Aldridge. And it’s not just because Leonard has a freakishly big hands too, which explains his super dope logo.
The @KawhiLeonard collection. Coming soon. pic.twitter.com/zDR9aKydRj
— Jordan (@Jumpman23) April 14, 2016
If we were were to rank the Jordan Brand athlete hierarchy at the moment, most would assume that Russell Westbrook is the top man since he is the de facto face of the current Air Jordan model to go along with his casual Westbrook Zero while Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony aren’t that far behind as the elder statesmen for the brand with their Jordan signatures. After that are guys like Blake Griffin, Jimmy Butler and Leonard – players that wear the Air Jordan proper as well as the brand’s top of the line performance models like the Ultra.Fly or Super.Fly. This group is the next line to get a Jordan signature shoe. Or are they?
We’ve been waiting on Griffin to get a Jordan signature shoe since he first joined back in 2012. Butler famously left adidas to join Jordan Brand at a discount and the results have been an apparel collection and an Air Jordan XX9 Low with his logo on it. Jordan Brand recently tweeted that Leonard would be getting his own apparel with his dope “The Claw” logo soon, but no sign of a signature shoe anywhere. Is this the right direction to take for someone who already has the accolades that everybody else we’ve mentioned so far is still chasing? Wouldn’t it make sense to bless Leonard with a signature shoe of his own? Or are the days of a Jordan performance signature shoe for one of their athletes a thing of the past?
Unless there are very unique circumstances, like Butler’s XX9 Low PE, the only Jordans that sneakerheads, hypebeasts and casual fans recognize are retros. Team Jordans, CP3s, Melos and the Westbrook Zero all sit on shelves waiting for their prices to drop to clearance levels before they get scooped up by people (think your uncle that buys shoes once every 2-3 years and still rocks the CP3.V) that just want a Jumpman on their feet regardless of appearance or performance. While it sounds cool in theory to have a Jordan signature shoe, it’s got to be a bummer for Paul that few people want his kicks and yet a retro with his logo on it will sell out in a day.
Meanwhile, Westbrook doesn’t have this problem because he’ll break out something from his stash of retro exclusives for big games and rock the current Air Jordan the next day. Griffin might never get a signature shoe, but his place as the biggest name to wear their .Flys is secure. Butler has been known to pull off a similar trick like Westbrook, but considering where his Bulls are currently sitting – out of the playoffs – and where it’s headed in the future – not a playoff lock – it doesn’t seem likely that he would get a signature shoe. So the only real drama left is Leonard and whether or Jordan Brand will bless – or curse depending on how you look at it – him with a signature shoe. For somebody with Leonard’s track record, it sure is taking a long time. But maybe it’s because of something that happened in the past…
And then there’s the other path.
Before Russell Westbrook and Kawhi Leonard, there was Dwyane Wade. He had it all as a Jordan Brand athlete; the Michael Jordan co-sign; a signature Fly Wade shoe; being the man tasked with moving the Air Jordan forward. It’s not like Wade did not embrace the role of being the “next Jordan” but he found out in time that the role was not for him. He felt that the Wade name could mean more and that he could parlay that into his own brand. Whether or not he did the right thing in the eyes of sneakerheads is a topic for another time, but the effect he had on Jordan Brand and how he changed how they worked moving forward is still being felt to this day.
Leonard is, as the late Stuart Scott would say, “cool as the other side of the pillow.” White socks notwithstanding, he steals the show when he breaks out an Air Jordan 13 PE for All-Star Portrait Day. He gets the blogs buzzing with his Ring Night Air Jordan 6 with The Claw logo. If he was wearing a PE version of a hypothetical Jordan signature shoe, it wouldn’t have garnered as much buzz.
It’s an interesting dynamic that no other brand has to deal with; what’s best for business in the long term is that Jordan Brand keeps creating new stuff that will eventually become tomorrow’s classics, but what’s best for business in the short term is having somebody like Leonard wear a retro that will break Sneaker Twitter. And if Leonard can transition into being this generation’s Tim Duncan and wins multiple championships, what’s best for Jordan Brand – him accepting his latest MVP award in retros, the current Air Jordan or a Jordan The Claw shoe?
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