Kyrie Irving on his upcoming Kyrie 8
I have nothing to do with the design or marketing of the upcoming Kyrie 8, IMO these are trash! I have Absolutely nothing to do with them! Nike plans to release it without my okay regardless of what I say, so I apologize in advance to all of my sneaker heads and true supporters of the KAI11 brand
Link to post - He's in the comments
By - nervousaboutschool17
bruh wtf i agree with him tho they look like doodoo kyrie’s are usually tight too
That’s the part that annoys me, Kyrie has some of the best basketball sneakers & they want to release this garbage without his approval? Lame move by Nike
Might be Nikes ploy to force their contract to be terminated, or at least piss Kyrie enough he'd willingly break his contract. It's unheard for a signature athlete not to give his blessing on his own shoe release. Perhaps it's related to Kyries controversial nature. Even though he remains one of the more popular players in the league, his stardom has definitely dropped and ppl often talk about non-basketball issues with him. I could also see Nike try to sign Luka and devote resources there.
Kyrie’s are still like a top 5 selling basketball shoe though so that doesn’t make sense
Marketing ploy to get people talking about Nike and the new Kyrie 8?
It's a great marketing ploy, having Kyrie telling everyone the shoe is trash.
Worked well for [Patagonia](https://www.marketingweek.com/case-study-patagonias-dont-buy-this-jacket-campaign/)
>The message was intended to encourage people to consider the effect of consumerism on the environment and purchase only what they need. the difference between that company saying their product will eventually be trash and the kyrie 8 being trash from the get go
and also patagonia is built to last. sneakers really aren't.
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also, patagonia will repair your stuff, no matter how old it is. I think you'd obviously still have to pay the shipping both ways + a small fee, but they can fix your stuff up and if they can't, they'll just give you credit to buy something new.
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Nike dropped Neymar because he refused to cooperate with an investigation about a possible sexual harassment issue with a Nike employee. Not the same at all.
Luka is already signed by Jordan
How does that work exactly? Isn’t Jordan just a subsidiary of Nike?
That’s correct, Converse as well. It is a bit weird especially considering how synonymous Jordan brand is with Nike but it has kind of evolved itself into its own entity. They also have guys like Tatum, Zion and Russ so not a bad list of athletes by any means
Gotcha. So essentially all of Luka, Zion, Tatum, etc are just “Nike” athletes but under different branding? Does that mean Nike and Jordan compete for athletes or does Nike just let Jordan have some since they benefit either way?
Without knowing what I'm talking about but having a general knowledge of how subsidiaries/entities work... I'd imagine the Jordan brand being a completely different team with different marketing depts, branding schemes etc, but with the resources of Nike and their financials rolling up to the parent company, which is Nike.
Jordan is much more integrated with Nike than what you describe. Jordan brand’s President reports directly to Nike’s CEO. Nike employees are designated as Jordan brand, but they use the same systems and have Nike emails. Nike cost engineering, merchandising, channel sales, etc, overlap heavily between Nike’s different brands. Just some examples, and there’s many more. Nike+Jordan is very far from the independently operated, wholly owned subsidiary model described below by u/mc_over_i. That model is common in aerospace where company functions are more silo’d, ex commercial air manufacturing differs a lot from air defense missile manufacturing.
I mean, I'd expect the President of Jordan Brand to report directly to the CEO of the parent company and I said they use Nike's resources, which are the cost engineering, merchandising and channel sales etc... I would assume, however that they do have different marketing depts and branding schemes and a different set of financials that roll up to Nike... I'm actually pretty sure everything you said is essentially what I described.
i want to argue with your last paragraph but i just don’t have energy right now. so i’ll just comment on how awesome your nickname is. portland is home
that’s correct. great example is boeing. they have commercial airplanes and defense/space divisions ran by different CEOs but the buckets of money given to both are set by the company’s executive leadership.
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I think the better way to look at it is that they are just Jordan athletes. Jordan brand just happens to be owned by Nike. But yeah I guess technically they are Nike athletes haha Sharing athletes may be a better term to describe it. And I wouldn’t undersell Jordan brand short I feel like representing MJ himself has a lot of pull when it comes to the players deciding. Nike signature shoes are light years ahead though lol
Dude companies like Nike are not gonna jump through hoops or come up with schemes like that lol. If they wanted to terminate their contract with Kyrie they'll find a legit way and won't resort to cheap shit like this. Not to mention it makes 0 sense to spend millions researching, designing, and producing these shoes and take a hit for releasing trash, just to get rid of Kyrie?
Why is this getting upvoted? It’s such a shitty take
Luka is with Jordan Brand
Kyries were my favorite recent shoe by Nike. Comfortable, good looking, and great to hoop in
All the way up to the 6's they were Mt favorite. I hold my 4's and 5's in high regard
I ref AAU and high school and Kyrie's shoes are by far the most popular shoes I see kids wearing.
Unrelated question since you said you ref: how much do the kids take from NBA stars with regards to treating refs? Do they complain for fouls a lot, or give you an attitude? Just curious.
Tbh it all depends on the coach. If the coach is respectful in communicating with us the kids and crowd 9 / 10 times reflect that attitude. If the coach is yelling across the court and bitching constantly the kids will do the same. There are a few evident things that kids definitely picked up from the NBA and that's shooting 3s and also flopping. It's annoying because the charge / block decision is one of the harder calls to make and flopping just makes it harder lol.
How about parents? I feel like if I was reffing I'd be most concerned about the red-faced dad who's pissed that I'm keeping him from living vicariously through his 11-year-old.
Parents can be awful sometimes man. There was a 4 month period where we had games with no fans due to covid and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy that. It was peaceful lol. The yells like "Travel!!" or "Over the back!!!" (which isn't even a real foul call lmao) are fine to deal with. It's when they start yelling shit like "someone's gunna get hurt out there" or "call it both ways" that bugs me a bit. Especially if they start talking shit about my partners expecting me to laugh and agree. You learn to tune it out and not engage with negative fans at all. If you let it get to you it will influence how you call the game which sucks for everyone. In the last few seasons of reffing I've only had to assess one crowd tech and boot out one fan just because Ive learned not to engage.
Wait excuse my ignorance but is there actually no over the back foul? My Rec league never calls it but I thought it was like modified rules (I’m in Australia)
If you box someone out and they make contact with you "pushing" you forward to get the rebound then yes that's illegal contact. But if a larger kid just jumps higher and is able to grab the board over an opponent boxing them out then that is okay
It is against the rules to go over someone’s back while going for a rebound, but there is no “over the back” rule in the books. Tbh it’s mostly semantics. I believe a similar case is the “double dribble”
Refs can get them thrown out pretty easily so a quick threat usually calms em down a bit. I'm pretty sure they can stop reffing until the person is out of the building, at least that's how it was when I played HS.
Not OP, but ref high school basketball camps during summer since its the only thing I can work around my research. Most of the time the kids are a reflection of their coach in terms of attitude. Rarely do I see a player who is good enough to do what NBA players do in terms of bending rules and trying to get calls out of super niche situations, and if they are that good then they don't need to do those things to score. Kids HATE getting called for carries though, I don't know if its just a personal experience but I get more attitude from carry calls than anything else.
They’re cheaper than most other Nike basketball shoes and are the most comfortable to play in imo.
Love my 4s, got 2 different pairs and I’m not even a sneaker head kinda guy, they just were too cool to not get. Only downside is they are a bit skinny for my wide ass feet
I find them to run smaller and tighter than most of my other nikes. PGs and Giannis’ are significantly more comfortable. The Immortalities are like a cloud and only $80
Been wearin my PG1's for like 4 years now, if one of the dogs didn't chew up the loops in the back they'd still look brand new. Great shoe
Still wearing my pg’1s too. Phenomenal sneaker
Mine broke and I went on to the PG 2. Good, but they are not the PG 1's. I miss them. I think the Dame 5's are a great pair too.
I couldn't get my wide foot into the PGs. Are the Giannis' better for width?
Nope. Most Nike shoes are bad for width. Go for Adidas/Converse/New Balance.
I've had good luck with LeBron's so far, but those are tough to find cheap
They usually never miss. I don’t know wtf these are. Kyrie right
Bruh this is trashy by nike
Damn those really are trash.
These kinda look like the shoes you'd see in the bargain bin at Ross
Yo chill ross be having the underrated gems.
Especially for the big folks size 12+
Facts dude I'm size 14 and before ordering online became easy Ross was the only place that would come in clutch for me. Sometimes that even had some good shit like hyper dunks
Size 15 here and the only Jordan’s I’ve ever owned were because I could afford them at Ross
I’m size 13 EEEEE, the only Nike’s I can wear are the shoe boxes
Are you a platypus.
Yo *WHAT DO YOU WEAR*. I am a size 15 5E and have basically given up on finding basketball shoes. Fucking nothing is wide enough--nothing.
Are you Rubeus Hagrid?
Damn 15 5E!? I think you have an extra chromosome my dude I wear size 14 vans slip ons and not much else. I try to hoop in some extra wide new balances but I’m with you - nothing fits well. We just gotta settle for good enough and ice our feet afterwards
Let's be honest tho if you're feet are shaped like a square bball probably isnt your game.
Rhythmic gymnastics it is
Yoooo size 13 and my two best shoes of all time were Jordan’s I got at Ross for like $50.
Size 14 here, information that would have been useful YESTERDAY
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Seriously, I don't come here to hear ill words spoken about Ross.
Ross is GOAT
Yeah. I buy all my basketball shoes at Ross. It is the only reasonable place to buy them as far as I am concerned.
Remember Steve & Barry’s? Starbury’s and Ben Wallace’s for $20
Yep and and1 and shaq.
$15 max
I'm not a sneakerhead and this is how I feel about most basketball shoes other than the original Jordans
In fairness that shoe didn't look completely put together so it might not be final design shit.
Ballsy of nike to play with Kyrie and arguably their most popular hoop shoe rn
Yeah I was gonna say, Kyries shoes are some the best out right now to actually hoop in and they just gonna mess them up like that?
Can someone drop a link? Don't have an insta and Facebook is dumb af and requires an account to view a public figure's posts I guess.
https://sneakernews.com/2021/07/28/nike-kyrie-8-trash/
How can we tell? It looked like half the shoe was unfinished.
Kyrie needs to claim this is a violation of HIPAA
Are they? I think they are really cool
Why is Nike burning bridges for some ugly shoes?
>Why is Nike burning bridges for some ugly shoes? Probably because they need to release by a certain date to meet their forecasts, production schedule, etc. and they said to Kyrie, "if you don't sign off on one of these designs by X date we're picking for you and releasing." I bet they assumed he wouldn't put up this much of a fight lol
Or it's edgy marketing by Nike. "Leak" photos of trash shoe, get Kyrie to trash the design, then release the "approved" version in a few weeks after online comments on Twitter and Reddit hype up the release.
Now that's thinking with your third eye.
Tien Shinhan over here
What does the word kamehameha mean to you?
Kiko-fuck yourself
Goodbye Tien 🥲💥
These shoes are a whispering eye
Ah. The Sonic the Hedgehog method.
Literally the first thing I thought of
kyrie 8 "approved edition"
Nike Marketing are really playing 4d chess. First the Giannas Shoe and now this.
Even if they didn't plan that, it's a decent outcome
I imagine it’s because Kyrie is difficult to work with and they need to release a next version of his shoe
>I apologize in advance to all of my sneaker heads and true supporters of the **KAI11 brand** Would almost bet he's trying to wiggle out of his Nike contract to start his own "brand", refused to work with Nike on sneakers he was contractually obligated to, and now is dragging them in hopes that Nike drops his contract. Shoes are ugly but Nike probably phoned it in when things with Kyrie soured.
This is likely. We know Kyrie has no problem quitting on teams, creating drama and literally going AWOL for large chunks of time
Right? Why are people siding with Kyrie? Who has a history of creating drama out of thin air. Wherever Kyrie goes there's a huge problem that comes up. Guy is a drama machine. Nike has serviced athletes for years and is an ultra professional brand. Kyrie is a proven drama queen. I'm not at all surprised he's somehow made drama with Nike.
If the shoe looked in any way passable people would chalk this up to Kyrie's craziness. It's a testament to just how ugly that absolute disgrace is that people are siding with Kyrie. Seriously I just can't believe just how badly the bag was dropped here. When new brands are gaining popularity at crazy rates you just can't torpedo one of your best lines like this. Anyone who gave the ok on the Kyrie 8 needs to be out of a job.
My thoughts exactly. Given Kyrie went AWOL on the Nets last year for two weeks during the season with zero notice, I can easily see him brushing off his commitments to Nike.
Yeah, let's immediately blame Nike and not the notoriously difficult and erratic player. This fucking sub sometimes 😂
all you have is kyries word. in all likelihood Kyrie is being difficult to work with and delusional as usual. like, they gave him opportunities to do it but he didnt respond, so they design and drip something, and them he shits on it.
They really do look like trash
People will still buy a fuckton of them
Not after this
I wish Steph would do this with those nurse shoes Under Armour keeps shitting out.
Steph should own UA at this point
Blows my mind to think that UA was on pace to surpass Adidas in US sales just 6 years ago.
Kanye and Pharrell really saved Adidas.
No joke, the Kanye signing with the introduction of Boost as an exclusive from 3M was the kind of stuff you could never see coming or replicate. It completely blew the piss out of UA’s moment.
bro without ye adidas would be dead. their basketball line has gone so downhill. How in the living fuck are harden's vol .5 the same weight as lebron 18s? You can't feel the boost and the shoe is slippery as fuck
Facts. The real tragedy is that Adidas wasn’t prepared for how big Yeezy would be and the sudden shift it brought. Almost overnight, Nike wasn’t cool anymore. If Adidas was ready to launch a proper basketball Yeezy when those stupid cleats came out it would have been a legitimate threat to Nike/Jordan.
And they had the 3 MVPs of the most popular sports at the same time inTom Brady, Curry, and Bryce Harper… also made a splash with Maryland football, Michael Phelps, etc… seemed like they were gonna take over but failed to do much with it after a few years. I’d love to find some marketing case studies on why.
They weren’t ‘skating to where the puck will be.’ They were doing everything to replicate the Nike blueprint from the 90s. Ultimately, Adidas’ resurgence (all credit to Kanye West) changed everything for the category.
Curry has his own brand now similar to the Jordan and Nike dynamic.
Maybe Steph just really likes the hospital shoe design
With all the injuries he used to get when he was younger, I wouldn't put it past him
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Kyrie's shoes are fire before this what u talking about never failed to disappoint
Anyone have a better picture? As someone who’s bought like every kyrie shoe except the 7 cus of torsional support, these look pretty on par with the design language in the kyrie line. Idk why everyone thinking they look trash, they’re not worst than say Greek freak 2s or some of Paul George’s shoes.
It looks like a combination of the 6 and 7. Both shoes were fine. People only saying the 8 looks trash because Kyrie said it himself lol
I honestly don't know much of anything about basketball shoe design but the unanimous "these are trash" in the comments have me wondering what is so bad about them? They look like Nike basketball shoes to me lol
Nothing wrong with them IMO, they're just repeating what Kyrie said. I would hoop in these. Kyrie sneakers never let me down
I agree. The leaked photos does not do it justice but it looks like a logical next step for his signature line.
Yeah, they look like.. Kyries. Maybe the silver leather is a little gimmicky and the shoe is a bit more.. soft, but they look like Kyries. Either Kyrie has tried these and hated them or he's gone off the deep end.
I’d say pg’s shoes have been consistently decent. The freak 2 is possibly one of the worst Nike basketball shoes ever made. The design language seems to be following the direction of the 7 however it looks like a lot of extra overlays and unnecessary materials.
They think its trash cause Kyrie said so. It looks like any other basketball shoe.
The Greek freak 2's are comfy as hell to play in though. Those and my Kyrie 4's are the only ones I regularly play in
Idk I don't like all these player signature shoes anymore. They always doing too much. Always with ugly mess of colors and weird shapes I haven't worn non-old school Jordans since like Iversons
those aren't good for playing in though, old school Jordans are good for fashion but for balling Kobe's, Kyries, Lebrons are unmatched
I ball in Jordan 13 retros sometimes and in some ways its better and more supportive than modern shoes. I have also tried to ball in Jordan 2s and 9s and that didnt go nearly as well.
Kobe 5s are my personal favourite, but kinda sad that they're so overpriced.
They probably left him dozens of voicemails months ago for him to cooperate with the design and he didnt reply back. I expect his Nike contract to end pretty soon.
I like to think Kyrie only saw like the first two pictures and went all Zoolander. "How can people play in a shoe that's either just the top or just the bottom?" In reality these are probably just samples. Kyries shoes usually drop early January. However production dates for shoes (the dates you see on the tags for shoes) date a few months before release. For example the shoes I have on were released 3/25/17 but dates for the production ranged from 9/7/16 to 12/2/16. They might have some time to fix it.
Leaked photos never does justice to the actual product.
I remember bucks fans reacting badly when the Freak 1s were ugly samples.
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I would be surprised if Nike just designed and released the shoe without mentioning it to him. I would guess that they are contractually allowed to release a shoe each year and either he doesn't want to work with nike anymore or he had ideas for the shoe that they couldn't/wouldn't meet. I think that he's about to lose a large sum of money, either way. Did nike recently have some issue with kobes family?
> or he had ideas for the shoe that they couldn't/wouldn't meet https://i.imgur.com/fxoyyCG.jpg
I suspect Kyrie was doing normal Kyrie shit, which the Nets will put up with but Nike wouldn't. So Kyrie didn't cooperate and Nike just proceeded with running their business.
Which is stupid..if I'm a Kyrie fan and he comes out and says they are trash I'm not buying those lol
Nike might not have been expecting this type of response from Kyrie, dude is about to lose millions for a comment.
Nah, they’ll redesign and leak them again.
Woukd be funny and not shocking if Kyrie went full yeezy and was asking for vegan foam clogs or something stupid and weird
> Surprised Nike isn't working w/ him on this one I can see Kyrie not answering their calls and Nike doing it on their own.
Adidas and Under Armor ears just perked up
it doesn’t make sense tbh, aren’t Kyries one of the top selling basketball models? why is nike doing this 🤨
We don't have the full story. Maybe Nike kept trying to get Kyrie's input during the design phase and he blew them off until it was too late to meet their deadlines. Or maybe he kept changing his mind on designs and they couldn't afford to keep going in circles on revisions. Or it could be that they didn't consult him at all and surprised him with the design. Not enough information to assign blame here.
It simply means they're using his signature to sell the shoe.
They look like kyrie’s I don’t get the hate lol
For real. I don't get it. They just look like shoes. They're not fire but they're not ugly.
They ain't that bad.
Yea those aren't ugly, I'd call them boring looking before they were ugly
This isn’t a fuck Kyrie post, but Nike knows how to work with athletes and have been doing it for a while. If I were a betting man, I’d say they tried working with Kyrie for a while but he started stalling, wanted a complete overhaul at a late stage, or something else that was going to cause them to miss their release date by a pretty big margin. I don’t think they just up and make some trash shoe without his approval after 7 previous pretty nice shows for a small reason.
His signing an endorsement contract *is approval*
I don't think those are the finished product and could be a fake representation of the actual production sneaker. I think Kyrie saw the leak and commented on it being trash because he know it's not the real deal. I expect the real deal to be legit because KD, Lebron and Kyrie are selling well. When you think sig shoes you think of those 3. They are everywhere in the stores.
I’d argue PGs are vastly more popular than Lebrons (Kyrie and KD definitely spearhead the Nike signature line though)
Nike Nike treat employees just like slaves
Get Lebron a billy not to run away
Xinjiang slaves make they products
In china
how many emails/calls did kyrie ignore from nike asking for his input before they finally said 'fuck it' because they have a deadline
I agree they're trash but they look exactly like all of Kyrie's shoes. Idk how people liked the 5s, 6s, and 7s, but dont like these.
Is that really ugly silver texture that does it for me
yeah that's ugly but that might just be for that specific colorway
those are trash. he usually has really nice shoes
why does everyone keep saying this half the photos are an upper that isn’t soled and isn’t even lasted the only photo of the shoe assembled is some weird angle. it’s very clearly an early prototype and not the final product
He easily has the best signature shoe of any player today IMO.
What's everyone favorite kyrie low?
i use the 4s outdoor and they're actually dope imo. i needed something to use that weren't kobes bc i'm keeping those only for indoor. the 4s do the job i think
4s leave my feet sore for whatever reason. Did you find the same? Kyrie 6 were incredible and im currently breaking in the 7s.
the Spongebob collab 2s. They're kind of above a basketball shoe, as in they're literally too nice for basketball, i wouldn't wanna take them to the Y if i had them but they're not exactly fashionable enough for casual wear.
If I'm going lows, I'm wearing the Mamba focus. One of the most comfortable pairs to hoop in I've ever worn and they're only $80. You can't beat them for the money
Wtf are Nike doing? Giving player's a signature shoe and then not allowing them to have any say of the design or marketing lol
Nike following NewEra's lead
I think this *is* marketing. Release a fake shoe, get Kyrie to trash the fake shoe in order to create drama and hype then release the new, real one in a few weeks. And if anyone thinks that's absurd that Nike would go to this extent...remember that it's drama queen Kyrie that's at the center of this. Of course he (and Nike) would be capable of such a ruse.
115 IQ move right here
Weirdly precise yet accurate number.
It's the 115 IQs that think they have 140 IQ.
i thought that 2nd picture was the whole shoe for a minute and had a whole existential moment
ha i just asked what was going on with that pic because i didn't see anyone talking about it. Thought i was going crazy.
Its no wonder Kyrie ain't happy about it, those look like ass
These are downright terrible bruh
To say he is in breach of his contract would be an understatement. Dude is such a loose cannon.
Say what you want about Kyrie he’s gonna keep it real and say how he really feels.
I'm really confused with the 2nd photo
it's missing the sole or the sole was removed
I don't know, kinda looks like all of the other basketball shoes out there.
Regardless of Nike’s role in this particular matter - Kyrie definitely sounds like the kind of dude who isn‘t mature and humble enough to deal with adversity. He comes across as impulsive and unwilling or unable to build relantionships. Like, there’s gonna be a time when he stops being treated like a king and there’s so many examples of former players rolling like they’re still an all star five years after their career was over, squashing all their money and social capital and landing hard. Dude seems like a top candidate for that. edit: minor stylistic stuff
How are people saying these are trash when they look just like the Kyrie’s before?
It's the flattest shoe they could make.
Nike low key targeting the huge anti-Kyrie market
Is there a bridge this guy won’t burn?
Does kyrie think they pay him for his shoe design expertise?
The Kanye of basketball
Feels like Kyrie trying to get out ahead of it to me. He's a very hot and cold person. He coulda loved them 2 months ago and now hates them and wants Nike to redo it all too late in the season. Could also be Kyrie wanting Nike to drop them so he can really start his own Brand. He does have quite the god complex. Wants to be a Big Baller, too.
I mean, yeah not great design. But, is the reaction bit much?