That figure isn’t exactly staggering, but it is the highest yet for a performance basketball sneaker from Nike. Crater Foam uses at least 11-percent recycled rubber and foam, while the laces, yarn, and even the marbled Swoosh are partially made up of repurposed materials to bring the shoe’s total recycled volume to 25 percent. The (relative) sustainability of the midsole and other components of the Cosmic Unity are also a major part of its appeal.
I have a basketball sneaker in my daily rotation again.
But as I began to crank out more errands on foot, the tight-knit upper became less constricting and allowed me to appreciate the support of the Crater Foam midsole below. At first, I was reminded that basketball shoes take some breaking in and found them a tad too snug for comfort. So far, in a week of wearing the Comic Unity around and when I’ve gone to throw up some bricks, the sneaker has held me down at every stop. Finally, I thought, hoop shoes that look good enough for me to wear in everyday life. Performance basketball shoes in recent years skew ugly and are increasingly looking the same across the board - which is why I was so stoked to get my hands on Nike’s new Cosmic Unity. I lament basketball’s decreased relevance in the space it ultimately created, but I’m not surprised either.
The space has been in decline for more than five years, as NPD senior advisor Matt Powell routinely reports, accounting for just 3 percent of athletic footwear sold in the U.S. Outside of Michael’s line, few people are wearing basketball shoes anymore - especially for anything other than playing the sport. Air Jordans may still be the cream of the crop, but fewer of the people acquiring them share the same love of basketball as those that did 10 to 15 years ago. Today, basketball is nowhere near as essential to sneaker culture. Among my favorite non-Jordans from middle school through college were, in chronological order, Kevin Garnett’s Adidas KG Bounce, the Converse Wade 1, and the Nike LeBron 8 “South Beach.” And even though my sneaker craze would eventually expand outside of basketball, nothing was more important than hoops in the end. Knowing, for example, that the Air Jordan 3 was the sneaker that kept Michael from leaving Nike or that the Air Jordan 6 was the shoe in which he won his first championship was the key to the appeal of each shoe. The encyclopedia of Air Jordans and the significance of each model and variant became ingrained in my brain. The drafting of Carmelo Anthony to my hometown Denver Nuggets got me into the sport for the very first time, and it was his first signature shoe, the Air Jordan 1.5, that would be my first of many Jordans.īall became life, and I eventually learned about a much wider world of Jordan than what Carmelo wore on court through nascent sneaker blogs and forums. Like many sneakerheads who claimed the title before it became a thing, it was basketball that got me into this silly little world of ours.
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