{"id":440714,"date":"2015-04-08T12:00:33","date_gmt":"2015-04-08T16:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.snkrsday.com\/?p=440714"},"modified":"2019-01-06T00:09:25","modified_gmt":"2019-01-06T05:09:25","slug":"richard-rip-hamilton-talks-michael-jordan-shoe-collection-sneak-peek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.snkrsday.com\/richard-rip-hamilton-talks-michael-jordan-shoe-collection-sneak-peek\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard “Rip” Hamilton Talks Michael Jordan, His Shoe Collection & Sneak Peek"},"content":{"rendered":"
words & interview \/\/ George Kiel:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n During his playing days, Richard “Rip” Hamilton<\/strong> made the most of his Jordan Brand deal by lacing up a wide array of retros and pulling out PEs. As his Instagram followers can attest, he’s stayed busy since hanging it up on the hardwood, still scoring shipments of new Jordan releases by the box load. Currently campaigning with Gillette, we caught up with Rip to discuss his longtime love of Air Jordans, crazy kick collection and which JB athletes would have the best Sneak Peek.<\/span><\/p>\n [March 20, Las Vegas] Richard “Rip” Hamilton joins Gillette Clear Gel in hosting a college basketball viewing party at The Ainsworth (Isaac Brekken\/AP Images for Gillette)\n Snkrs Day: What effect did playing with Michael Jordan have on you being an admirer of his sneaker brand?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Richard Hamilton:<\/strong> It had a great effect, but as a kid growing up, the hottest series of sneakers in the world was Jordans anyway. If you had a pair of Jordans on your feet, regardless of what else you had on – a bummed out shirt or dirty jeans – you were considered the freshest in the room at least where I’m from. If you had a pair of Jordans on, everybody looked up to you. I always loved them, but more so I admired what Michael Jordan represented as a player, so it wasn’t just about the sneakers. The brand meant greatness; it meant championships; it meant being aligned with the best player in the world. So when I got the opportunity to play with him in Washington, it really brought everything that I thought about him to light. He was just as cool as the homeboy you grew up with.<\/span><\/p>\n Snkrs Day:\u00a0So you’ve been a Jordan fan of both, him and his sneakers, forever?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Richard Hamilton:<\/strong> Yep. I always thought in order for you to perform on the court at your highest level, you had to look good, and when looking good, you had to have the best sneakers on your feet. So if it wasn’t Jordans, then it wasn’t right in my opinion. I never got into any other brand simply because I thought Jordan had the best sneakers.<\/span><\/p>\n Snkrs Day:\u00a0Tell me about your “Only Take What You Can Carry Out” Rule because I might have to try that when I come out.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Richard Hamilton:<\/strong> [Laughs<\/em>] You’ll definitely get a try. It started when Antonio, one of my buddies who wears the same size as me, came to my house and told me that he was going to grab a couple of sneakers. It became a pattern every time he stopped by, which was every single day. He would grab like 3-4 pairs each time, so one day I was like, ‘Dude, do you have to grab sneakers every day you come to my house?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, you got them so why not? We wear the same size and I’m your friend, so I should get them.’ After that, I had to think of a challenge for him because he would leave from my house with 15-20 pairs of sneakers each week. So I came up with a golden rule: whatever you can take out of my house and carry to your car, you can keep. I knew what I was doing with the rule because, you know, people get greedy so they’re not going to come in my house and just grab two or three. They’re going to try and stack up as many as they can to carry out. So one day, he came in and tried to carry out like 12-15 at a time. He made it out of the front door, but his stack fell right in the middle of the driveway. So he had to put the whole stack back into my closet. After I posted the footage on Instagram, all of my cousins and friends were like, ‘Yo, I want to try it.’ I let them go at it, but I told them the minimum they had to take is 10 unless you’re a short guy. Then, the minimum is seven. A stack of five or six pairs is too easy to carry out.<\/span><\/p>\n Snkrs Day: Who has been the most successful?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Richard Hamilton:<\/strong> Antonio for sure. If you come to my house every single day and try it, you’re going to get good at it. I think he tapped out at 15 boxes one day. He’s an expert now.<\/span><\/p>\n [March 20, Las Vegas] Richard “Rip” Hamilton joins Gillette Clear Gel in hosting a college basketball viewing party at The Ainsworth (Isaac Brekken\/AP Images for Gillette)\n <\/p>\n Snkrs Day:\u00a0What was your favorite and most comfortable Jordan shoe to wear on court?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Richard Hamilton:<\/strong> It would have to be the Air Jordan 2, hands down. I just love that shoe because it’s so soft. It feels like you’re running on pillows. Here’s a memorable story: During the year that we won the championship, Jordan Brand was making the player exclusive versions of the Air Jordan 2, and I remember them sending each one of us Jordan Brand athletes a limited number of like six pairs at a time. So they’d send you six pairs to wear for a month, then they’d send you six different pairs for another month and so forth. Well one day, when I first put them on in a regular season game, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m saving these for the playoffs’ because I might’ve had like 40 that night. I didn’t wear them again until the playoffs like I promised myself, but by the time I got to the Finals, all of them had broke down. I called my people at Jordan Brand them to see if I could get some more 2s before Game 1 of the Finals, and they said, ‘Yo Rip, we kind of moved on to the next sneaker.’ But my guy Rav at Jordan Brand went through walls and randomly stumbled upon another six pairs of 2s. So he overnighted them to me before Game 1 and all was good.<\/span><\/p>\n Richard Hamilton defending in an Air Jordan 2 PE\n Snkrs Day:\u00a0Describe the sneaker setup in your house. Is it just stacked up in a closet? Display shelves?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Richard Hamilton:<\/strong> Well, right now I’m creating something awesome. That’s all I can say. I actually just moved to Florida, and I’m creating an experience based around my sneakers in my new house. It’s going to be something really, really special. Right now, I have most of them in storage because I can’t fit them all in my house. Years ago, I started in one closet, then moved them into my guest closet, then into another guest closet, then into other rooms in the house, then into the bedroom space until my wife said I had to get them out of the house.<\/span><\/p>\n Snkrs Day:\u00a0Oh, so that’s why we’re holding off on a Sneak Peek episode right now?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Richard Hamilton:<\/strong> Exactly. I can’t even get to all of them right now. But after I get this experience set up, I’m inviting you over. You might just have to spend two whole days. It’s going to be amazing. I will say The Perfect Pair’s edition that you did was awesome. Absolutely incredible. He’s messing up the game right now. But basketball-wise, you need to hook up Mike Bibby. Mike Bibby. Mike Bibby. Trust me. Mike Bibby. Him and Ray Allen. But Mike Bibby might be on a different level. I remember he took his four-car garage and turned it into his sneaker room. It was crazy.<\/span><\/p>\n Snkrs Day:\u00a0When was the last time you counted your sneakers?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Richard Hamilton:<\/strong> Oh my goodness. Six years ago after the season, I tried to count every shoe and after about 1800-1900, I stopped counting. I just couldn’t count anymore, and mind you, that was six years ago. I’ve obtained so many more since then. I stopped counting because it just got ridiculous.<\/span><\/p>\n Special thanks to Gillette. Rip had the following to say on both their product and the basketball watch party they hosted together:<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n “I’m doing a Gillette clear gel\u00a0deodorant\u00a0college basketball viewing party in Las Vegas at the Hard Rock Cafe. It’s just a great\u00a0opportunity for me to interact with the fans and talk basketball, my sneaker collection and other things. They have a great product – it’s a 48 hour odor and wetness protection called the Undefeated. It’s great for college basketball right now because you have to go undefeated to win a championship. You can’t have any slippage. Wetness protection, and it doesn’t burn like other products do.”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" words & interview \/\/ George Kiel: During his playing days, Richard “Rip” Hamilton made the most of his Jordan Brand…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":440835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[944,1208050],"cultivate_rss":[],"class_list":{"2":"type-post"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n