Nike announced they will soon be releasing $315 dollar basketball shoes, named after the famous, or if you are from Cleveland infamous, all-star, Olympic Gold-Medal winning, national championship, basketball player.
The shoes are great! They are endorsed by one of the top players in the game, LeBron James; they have a unique design; and they will be rare, since only a limited supply will be made. Not only will they have an awesome gold Nike swoop, they will have electronics to measure how high the wearer can jump and other metrics. They are better, of course, than the $250 LeBron 9 PS Elite. Now if you can’t afford the 9 or X, you will be able to buy a cheaper version for less, you just won’t get the electronics.
Now look, I value well made shoes, having a wardrobe of various types of casual and dress types in brown and black, but paying much more than $100 for sneakers is insane. I’ve paid more than $100 for some I have, but I have been known to own and wear a pair for more than 20 years, after several resolings. I usually have one pair of athletic shoes for various exercising and running, but I have owned golf and other varieties of sports shoes in the past.
Some people have been known to kill each other over the latest and greatest Nike shoes, and it seems shameful to come out with an out-of-sight priced shoe for greed and envy aimed squarely at the youth market. Because of silly things like this that Nike does, I usually avoid them when looking for new running shoes, although I wish I had the blue and orange pair I owned as a kid in the 1970’s since they are now a collectors’ item.
