With the season coming to a close over the next month, several of the league's featured players are looking to utilize the playoff stage to debut new sneakers and highlight new technologies for the spring.
For Chris Paul and DeMar DeRozan, they simply couldn't wait, with each debuting the next generation of Jordan's and Nike's longstanding signature lines.
Paul debuted his new Jordan CP3.11, styled in a "rocket fuel" graphic and incorporating a forefoot strap for the first time in his series. As Paul's game evolves and ages, he has looked for lighter footwear to keep him feeling fresh during the closing stretches of games. The strap aims to offer added support and lockdown for his style of play, which relies less on pure speed at this stage and more on his misdirection and shiftiness.
"If you're fast, I'm not going to get as close to you because I know you'll just go faster than me. So instead of being fast, I try to use a change of pace," Paul said. "It's more important to me to be able to change pace than to just be one speed."
DeRozan has been leading the way in carrying the Nike Kobe series ever since Bryant hung them up for good last year. After debuting the new Kobe 1 Protro model during the 2018 All-Star Game, DeRozan debuted the next silhouette of the ongoing signature series, the Kobe AD NXT 360, earlier this week.
The shoe takes design inspiration from high-performance soccer boots, highlighted by a 360 Flyknit woven construction that sits atop a rubberized, molded chassis plate. The sleek and highly sculpted upper drew a huge reaction in real time, as DeRozan's surprise debut caught everyone's attention. For the L.A. native, carrying the torch of the Kobe line has still felt surreal.
"I grew up watching him and idolizing his game, then playing against him and playing in his last All-Star game with him. It's a shoe [series] I've worn my whole career," DeRozan said. "To have that really come full circle is definitely something I can't even put into words."
Around the league, LA Clippers teammates Montrezl Harrell and Tobias Harris dusted off special-edition pairs from the LeBron and Kobe series as the Clippers donned their retro-laden "Classic" jerseys. Harrell wore the China-exclusive version of the LeBron 9 from 2011, which draws its inspiration from celebrating the "Year of the Dragon" with a neptune blue and total orange palette. Harris played to the city's Hollywood locale, matching the "3D goggle" theater-driven edition of his Kobes perfectly with the team uniforms.
As we've come to expect on a weekly basis, Houston Rockets wing PJ Tucker continued his streak of vintage and rare sneakers, wearing a 2006 pair of the Zoom LeBron III one game and a 2009 Zoom Kobe 5 the next.
Check out the best sneakers worn around the NBA this week, and vote for your favorite pair below.
