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Oh, man.
Remember a few years ago, when often irritatingly untouchable Golden State Warrior golden boy Steph Curry blew off Beaverton shoe giant Nike for Under Armour, in a move that made sense to no one? When the Baby Faced Assassin walked off from Portland with, like, billions of dollars of future shoe sales in a wheelbarrow bound for Baltimore?
Apparently if you wanted to know why, all you had to do was ask his dad.
According to an ESPN article on its website today, the roots go all the way back to August 2013, when Nike courted Curry with all the skill and dedication of a forgetful, LeBron-married alcoholic.
Back then, Curry was a Nike guy. He was signed with Nike, and his godfather Greg Brink worked for Nike, right here in Beaverton. He still keeps a pair of Nike Zoom Hyperfuse shoes enshrined from his breakout 54-point game at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 28, 2013.
Quoth ESPN, "Nike had every advantage when it came to keeping Curry. Incumbency is a massive recruiting edge for a shoe company, as players often express a loyalty to these brands their NBA franchises might envy…all advantages that might explain why Nike's pitch to Curry evoked something hastily thrown together by a hungover college student."
Here are the relevant descriptions from the pitch meeting:
"The pitch meeting, according to Steph's father Dell, who was present, kicked off with one Nike official accidentally addressing Stephen as 'Steph-on,' the moniker, of course, of Steve Urkel's alter ego in Family Matters. 'I heard some people pronounce his name wrong before,' says Dell Curry. 'I wasn't surprised. I was surprised that I didn't get a correction.'
It got worse from there. A PowerPoint slide featured Kevin Durant's name, presumably left on by accident, presumably residue from repurposed materials. 'I stopped paying attention after that,' Dell says."
Dell, at this point, says he advised his son to look elsewhere.
At the time, ESPN's Ethan Sherwood Strauss writes, Nike was high on LeBron, as was everybody. And, well, they've still got him.
Although, Curry overtook LeBron in jersey sales last year—after, you know, beating his team in the championships. This year, Curry's shoes are selling more than every other player brand that's not Michael Jordan.
And Curry's signed with UnderArmour till 2024.
But while the money may flow back to Baltimore…at least all those Curry shoes will probably be designed here?
Here's the full ESPN article, with tons of fun details about our hometown shoe heroes totally blowing one of the biggest shoe endorsement deals of the decade.
As for us? We're just sitting back, buffing our Adidas D Lillard 2s.
Willamette Week