On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, four NBA players will wear brand-new Adidas sneakers that pay homage to Jesse Owens, one of the greatest athletes of all-time.
The release is timed in advance of Black History Month in February. Owens is most famous for winning four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, where the African-American athlete dominated the field in front of Adolf Hitler. Eighty years later, Owens remains a legend, and his legacy transcends sports.
It's fitting, then, that his name and iconography will grace a basketball shoe. Derrick Rose, Damian Lillard, James Harden and Andrew Wiggins will all wear shoes that recognize Owens. Rose will wear the D Rose 6, Lillard the D Lillard 2, and Harden and Wiggins will put on the Crazylight Boost 2.5.
The shoes are all styled in a palette of cream, brown and gold, and feature Jesse Owens' name on the front of the shoe:
The shoes will also feature the number 733, which was his bib number at the Olympics, along with an impressive 1936 graphic-print sockliner.
It's also fitting that Adidas is the company to produce this shoe: Its founder, Germany's Adi Dassler, supplied Owens with a leather track shoe that he wore in his landmark Olympic performance.
