Kristaps Porzingis, at the brand’s recent Crazy Explosive ’17 launch event in Europe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWith the athletes themselves, we started looking at things within the brand that were successful, and things they were wearing when they weren’t playing basketball. We started to see a trend towards more slim, more sleek and more form-fitting silhouettes.<\/p>\n
Pairing that vision and that type of input from the athletes themselves, and the ability of this new technology, it just made perfect sense. The upper itself is a single piece of Primeknit, and then we hit it with heat to mold and fuse it to add that structure and rigidity based on the athlete’s needs. In the tongue and collar, we don’t forge that area, so it stays nice and flexible. It’s a balance.<\/p>\n
NDP: My understanding is the shoe utilizes the same full-length Boost setup. Did you guys do anything differently with the chassis and shank to improve the responsiveness?<\/strong><\/p>\nJR:<\/strong> Based on getting really positive feedback on the first shoe’s cushioning \u2013 and some people were comparing it and saying it was Basketball’s UltraBoost \u2013 the comfort and the playability from weartesting sites gave us a lot of confidence that we were on to something special here. The first shoe was all completely new, and we asked athletes to digest a lot at one time. In this shoe, we wanted to double down on the things that we thought were most successful. That was the full-length Boost, the traction and the shank part.<\/p>\nWhat we updated was the side wrap. One of our design philosophies is \u201cdaringly simple.\u201d To get to daringly simple, it doesn’t mean that the product can’t perform any less, it just means that we need for each and every part of the shoe to perform even more. With that, this TPU is a co-injection. In the forefoot, that’s a dual-density TPU wrap and is a more firm area. It’s meant to provide more lateral stability when people are making hard cuts in the forefoot.<\/p>\n
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NDP: What can we expect to see from a color and execution standpoint? Will the shoe also launch in non-Knit versions as well?<\/strong><\/p>\nJR:<\/strong> Yeah, it will. There will be different pricepoints. The Primeknit version is definitely the pinnacle, and it allows us to really build a shoe in a unique way with the forging process to add that stability in. It won’t be the same silhouette or the same construction, but we’ll have other materials than Primeknit to make the shoe a little more attainable at different pricepoints. The sock construction is a really unique performance-driven silhouette. Not everybody likes that type of fit on and off the court, so we’ll look to offer up some different silhouettes and looks too.<\/p>\nNDP: The Low was worn by guys all around the league and was also really well liked design wise by our readers. Are you guys planning to introduce a Crazy Explosive Low earlier in the season this time around?<\/strong><\/p>\n