In parallel to this, a basketball concept was being developed far from the limelight, one that was played in the streets, with a completely different set of rules. Even though some players that were born from streetball later succeeded in professional leagues, its true influence went further than that; in its style.
ADIDAS RECOVERS THEIR HISTORY WITH STREETBALL
In the nineties, a golden age for basketball lived through the global expansion of a sport that was seen as a fan phenomenon. The greatest names held a place reserved for the biggest stars of the professional sport, but there was so much more.
A streetballer never knew when an opportunity to play would arise, which is why they always had to be prepared. Without any barriers between performance and lifestyle, the streetball style had its own rules; the NBA shirts weren’t allowed (but this rule didn’t apply to the pants), the uniforms had to be complete and the sneakers were spotless. A t-shirt from an old streetball tournament is more precious than that of an NBA star.
The sneakers also had to fulfil requirements. The asphalt is much tougher and coarse than that of a parquet, which is why they looked for models with better durability. Superimposed pieces of leather, rubbers that gave better support to the toe and colours that you wouldn’t usually see in the official basketball courts, because in the street there weren’t any uniforms you had to combine.
adidas, which in the seventies had already been a brand connected to street basketball thanks to their indestructible Superstar, launched in 1992 a lined exclusively designed for streetball that promoted a series of tournaments around the world. In the movie theatres, films like White Men Can’t Jump or Above The Rim were projected and the streets were filled with people who wanted to play a basketball that was far away from the official sites.
The adidas Streetball weren’t the only sneakers designed to be played in the streets, but it was one of the only cases in which streetball took over the most official side of European basketball and you could usually see them in the courts of the main leagues. Its style completely coated the NBA with their identifying mark: the authentic basketball came from the streets.
In an overview of their historic archive, adidas has reinterpreted those Streetball from the nineties to keep with some of these technical, over-constructed and ostentatious silhouettes that weren’t afraid of a little colour. From there, they have built a new adidas Streetball by mixing different layers of leather and fabric, with an updated midsole with Lightstrike and colour details in contrast. A model that recovers the streetball style from the nineties without falling for nostalgia.
