He did it for the money. Can't be mad at him. He was always looked at as just another player wearing Jordans, even though he was the official endorser of them. With this company he gets more guap and his own shoe which will be talked about for a while. Even if they are ugly as hell.
actually, he got dropped/removed off the jordan's.
when he could not sell the bootlegger inspired invisi hole jordan's.
to capitalize off nike/jordan taking back what was their's from the bootleggers.
when those had poor sales,...
he was removed, complained.
thinking he was above other jordan retro and mainline endorsee's.
then they gave him the cold fly wade's and they flopped.
so they jobbed't him out, with the fly wade ii's.
imo,...it really goes back to when.
if you are an nba player and you get offered a nike deal, as a rookie.
imo,..you take the deal. then try to be hands on.
to the cosmetics, and make a nice visually appealing shoe.
even if they don't pay or offer as much as the other companies.
as real talk,..as an nba player.
your market perneation lives or dies on whether or not you are with nike.
only dudes who did it and it bolstered their appeal in our gen without nike.
grant and ai,..who just so happened to have resurgent shoe companies.
who were trying to make a great cosmeticslly appealing shoe for that time.
as the grant hill i and ii's and the ai i's are still legendary shoes.
wade did not do that on converse.
[plus he tries to be this model hipster guy.
who acts like he knows style, when we know better.
evidenced by, he always had a wack shoe cosmetically.
dresses like urkel and a gay model who is conceited and none of that works in a masculine driven bball shoe market.
the only exception was the fly wade i's. which he did not design, they were given to him]
anyway, as a rook.
wade went with huff ass converse before they were bought out by nike.
had the wackest premier ballplayer ass shoes, you could think of, cosmetically.
for like three shoes straight or more.
pictured here:
which already made his stock low when it came to market permeation with fans and of course shoe buyer hype beast.
so when converse was bought out.
moving him into nike by force.
wade should have went just straight nike.
instead he went for the deal over his head with jordan stylistically shoe wise.
whih connected his huff converse design sensibility market wise wih jordan.
so when those weak ass jordan's after the tiger fin one's came out with the invisi hole on the side. hypebeast shoe buyers looked at it as another weak continuation of wade's wack converse flash run. then his stock as a shoe guy never recovered, from a hype beast stylistic cosmetic point of view.
real talk,...the only guy to have a dope shoe and move to nike was kobe.
his first kobe's on adidas were ill.
it is just those car carving shoes, aftwr were probably not the right move.
yet at least kobe had one nice sought after design and shoe from another company not named nike.
a shoe design adidas actually retro's and does some numbers.
so, when kobe went to nike. where everybody thought he belonged anyway.
nike made great shoes and connected him to great designs and the rest is history. even after the rape case.
wade on the other hand already had runed his perception. with awful designs on converse. so, wade's poor cosmetic perception shoe design wise. actually brought the actual jordan shoe on jordan brand down even further.
art barr
art barr
and still got the cool grey as well 