words // Nick DePaula:
During the late 90’s and into the 2000’s, there was an awesome trend sweeping across the league, as over twenty players got the faceless AND1 “Player” logo tatted in some form, regardless of their shoe endorsement deal. Some guys, like Joel Przybilla, for example, even had hilarious phrases added on, going along with AND1’s “Trash Talk” theme at the time. Very, very intimidating.
Later in the decade, as brand tats became more common, there was even that time in 2009 that Reebok asked Marcin Gortat to cover up his Jumpman logo tattoo for the ’09 Finals. He said no, and shortly after broke ties with the company.
Outside of JR Smith’s random Jordan II chest ink, we haven’t noticed too many sneaker related tats in recent years, until now.
It turns out Lakers lottery pick D’Angelo Russell actually has an original colorway of the Air Jordan 1 along his left calf, artfully hung over telephone wires. Russell signed with Nike after being selected 2nd overall in this past summer’s NBA Draft, and is probably looking forward to a longtime partnership with the Swoosh.
We’ve seen some other wild sneaker tats this year — what would you get?
