adidas Basketball Enters Its Golden Age
From the Harden Vol. 8 to the AE1, the Three Stripes is reinventing performance footwear with a language informed by the past and guided by the future.
It’s said fashion is cyclical. What resonated 20 years ago resonates now and what resonates now will resonate again in 20 years. This concept, however, rarely applies to the world of performance footwear, where new technologies and understandings of human anatomy cause seismic shifts at a breakneck pace. adidas’ basketball division is proving itself to be the exception to the rule.
From the Supergrip in the mid ’60s to the Superstar in the ’70s to the Forum in the ’80s, adidas basketball silhouettes followed a clear lineage for the better part of the 20th century. That all changed in the ’90s with statement models like the Mutombo and Streetball II. And then Kobe Bryant joined the Three Stripes, setting off a shockwave. The KB8, KB8 II and KB8 III. The introduction of The Kobe at the turn of the millennium and The Kobe 2 in 2001.
The avant-garde design of Eirik Lund Nielsen’s metallic experimentations proved too ahead of their time, failing to ignite the cultural fuse both silhouettes seemed to promise upon their debut. Fast forward 20 years and that time has finally arrived.
In just the last few years, the Three Stripes has been utterly fearless, completely reinventing its aesthetic with a new design language informed by the past and guided by the future. The vocabulary is simultaneously fluid and aerodynamic, with many of the latest models resembling spaceships or exotic sports cars more than traditional basketball shoes—perfect for its current roster of NBA superstars.
The AE1, Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards’ first silhouette, is considered among the greatest signature basketball sneakers in years. The webbed design on either side hints at the shoe’s technologically advanced construction, while the material contrast gives adidas the opportunity to present vibrant color stories without obscuring the bold design ethos. James Harden’s eighth iteration of his signature silhouette echoes this approach with a teardrop-shaped EVA frame that extends into a full-length Jet Boost midsole.
Damian Lillard and Trae Young’s signature sneakers are equally otherworldly in execution. Young’s current signature (the Trae Young 3) features a midsole that looks like a geological map, while his upcoming installment (expected in the fall of this year) is already lighting up the conversation on social media. Lillard’s latest pair, the Dame 9, has also not been released yet, but is very much in line with adidas’ evolving visual framework.
adidas hasn’t limited its new design strategy strictly to basketball sneakers either. Circling back to Kobe’s time with the Three Stripes, the recent reinvention of its Crazy line via the Mad IIInfinity and the Crazy IIInfinity follows in the same aesthetic direction as its performance footwear. Both models take cues from Y2K-inflected futurism, but, somewhat ironically, tone down the “crazy” side of things to make them work in a contemporary context.
Beyond footwear, adidas Basketball has applied this innovative approach to its apparel catalog: muted earth tones and oversized, slouchy silhouettes. Although he did not oversee the creative direction, the overall style feels drawn from the playbook of Jerry Lorenzo, who initially served as head of adidas Basketball before building an entirely new line with the Three Stripes dubbed Fear of God Athletics. Like the sneaker side of the equation, the clothing takes inspiration from cultural touch points of the early 2000s and blends it with a visual language strongly informed by the future.
In 2024, there’s a red thread through all of adidas’ designs, from performance footwear to lifestyle sneakers to apparel. And with Nathan VanHook joining the Three Stripes as VP of design for basketball, all signs point to them just getting started. VanHook, a longtime Nike alum, designed the Nike Air Yeezy 2 among many other shoes across the Swoosh’s Training, Football and ACG programs. All this before setting his sights on luxury and spearheading standout creations at Moncler like the Trailgrip.
Led by a modern footwear legend and backed by an army of hardwood superstars, adidas is ushering in an era of basketball sneakers that comes around only once in a generation. Whether the German brand’s singular vision impacts silhouettes beyond the Three Stripes’ purview remains to be seen. One thing, however, is undeniable: the Golden Age of adidas Basketball is upon us and the best is yet to come.
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