Saturday I picked up a new pair of the newest top Nike shoe, the Hyperdunk. The hype behind these was that they are the lightest basketball shoe ever made. I'm usually never one to believe the hype till I try it out. To many gimmicks. If you can jump, you can jump. Shoes won't make you Jordan or Kobe(if that's why you're buying shoes you need to invest some money into seeing a shrink instead). Playing ball is the only way to get better. Shoes won't change a thing.That being said the advertising behind these(which has been pulled but can be found on youtube) is that you'll be dunking all over the place. Just about every Olympic basketball team had them too. Different countries all had their colors. So I was intrigued as to how good of a shoe they were with so much advertising and money put into it.
The first thing I noticed as I opened the box were the clear sides of the shoe. Looking closer you could see the threading that ran through it. Interesting. The next thing that really struck me was when I pulled one out of the box how light it was. The ads weren't joking, it was light.
But I still didn't have it on my foot. So I slid em on and laced them up. Stood up and walked around to get a feel. Felt pretty good, a little stiff but that would go away in a few games. Most shoes need some breaking in anyhow. So I bought them and walked out the store.
The real test was last night. The first on court testing. They didn't fail. In fact they've got to be one of my favorite pairs I've ever had. They were grippy but not overly so. The had some ankle support but not to much so they stayed loose. They also were really cushy for being so light. Two things that I thought would happen were one, they wouldn't absorb impact being light, and two the material the sides were made from would either be weak and scratch and scuff easy or too rigid. They were perfect and in all honesty it felt like I was barefoot.
I'd highly recommend these shoes to anyone playing basketball. They easily surpassed my expectations.
