The last two Kyrie releases featured the advertising genius of Nike on full display. For the 3 we had a Questlove and Kyrie virtuoso performance to introduce the kicks. The 4 once again incorporated a musical fast paced classical and jazz inspired video. This year Kyrie is returning to the Celtics after they made a deep run into the playoffs without him. Nike shifted the release date of the shoe from Christmas to November. Instead of making the release a spectacle, the brand understands that Kyrie has the potential to go one of two ways. He could be headed towards a D. Rose styled breakdown considering the number of injuries Kyrie has had, or he could be the deciding factor in advancing Boston back to the glory days. What does the marketing team do?
They barely show the shoe.
Kyrie is made human. The guy who walked away from Cleveland. The guy who was a joke because of the flat earth theory. The guy who takes the majority of the criticism for breaking up a potential dynasty to be “the man” is given a moment in the sun and if he’s injured again, or if Boston falters, it won’t matter because Nike decided to make Kyrie more than Uncle Drew. They’ve made him a standard. There tends to never be an ode to the father in basketball footwear. That’s because in many ways most great players arrive from broken homes helmed by mothers.
This video is an homage to Denzil and Ray Allen’s famous one on one scene in “He Got Game”. It’s not a Oedipus styled confrontation however. It’s a bonding of father and son that we rarely get to see played in a positive manner. Nike made a shoe for an NBA player and they have to sell it… but in order to sell it, they didn’t and that’s how you do it.
