As God as my witness, I had no idea a shoe could break from the side like that. That's NUTS. He literally looked like a car in NASCAR blowing a tire.
Now for those that don't know, Zion Williamson is a certified athletic FREAK, and the probable #1 pick in the upcoming June NBA Draft. College basketball has never seen power like Zion. He's 6'7, 285 pounds, and cut from steel*. Honestly, Zion is probably as close as we'll get to seeing what we might have seen had LeBron gone to college in 2003. Just a superior athlete in all aspects. Every night he's jumping out of the gym, throwing down a hammer, he's the most explosive college athlete we've seen in a long, long time. But this clip from last night's game might best emphasize the type of explosiveness we're talking about. He SHREDDED his shoe on a jump stop in the lane. Bananas. His equipment can't even contain him.
*Take off 8 inches, 100 pounds, and replace 'steel' with 'mashed potatoes,' and you've got my blogger profile.
PS: Live look at Nike's marketing team watching this play last night:
I mean you talk about an all time disaster for them. They've got their shoes on a once in a lifetime college basketball player, a player so good that NBA teams are tanking on purpose just to enhance their odds of being able to draft him #1 overall, and then THAT happens. He hurts himself blowing through your shoe, and on the close up the first thing you see is the Nike swoosh logo. Not great, Bob! Then you've got Twitter lighting up with 'Just Blew It,' and 'Nike Blowout Sale,' posts. If you're Adidas or Under Armour you absolutely have to use that clip in your next TV commercial.
Double PS: It is entirely possible that this type of thing happens a lot, but because of the high profile nature of the player and game, it's the first time people are seeing a basketball shoe break like that. Keep in mind, I haven't played 'competitive' basketball since 8th grade (shout out Holy Name B team). I haven't played a pick up game in probably a decade. The most athletic thing I do is talk about sports on the internet. And I can carry 71 grocery bags into the house in one trip, not to brag. But I will conceded that there's a chance this isn't a big deal at all.
