Shoe facts
— Players on the Nuggets roster will wear an average of about 50 pairs of sneakers throughout a season, according to equipment manager Sparky Gonzales. But some will wear far more. There are certain players, Gonzales said, who will wear a new pair of shoes for every game and every practice, putting their total every season at well over 100 pairs.
— Michael Jordan’s deal with Nike, which owns the Jordan Brand, earned him as much as $110 million last year, according to Forbes. The biggest amount earned in 2017 from someone who is actually still playing basketball? LeBron James, who made $32 million from Nike.
— Custom-designed sneakers have been a growing craze in the NBA, but they are a time-consuming product to make. “It can go from a couple hours to a couple days,” said Salvador Amezcua, a sneaker designer better known as Kickstradomis, who has created custom shoes for more than 40 NBA players this season. “It all just depends on the details and the intricacies of what they want.”
— The average shoe deal for an NBA lottery pick in recent years rests between $200,000 to $700,00 per year, according to Yahoo Sports. Reaching the full amount of a given deal often depends on hitting certain numbers or winning certain awards stipulated in the contract.
— Who do NBA players consider to be the league’s biggest sneakerhead? That honor goes to P.J. Tucker, the forward for the Houston Rockets who is well know for his vast collection of hard-to-find retro sneakers that he wears on the court. “He’s a guy who definitely changes the sneaker game,” Nuggets forward Darrell Arthur said. “He’s trying to be the NBA sneaker guy.”
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