The 25 Best adidas Signature Basketball Shoes of All Time

1. adidas Ewing Conductor

Player: Patrick Ewing

Year: 1987

The Ewing Conductor represented the pinnacle in adidas signature shoe design. Patrick Ewing’s hightops were bulky back when bulky was a virtue, looked great in blue and orange, sported his distinctive logo on the tongue, and worked equally well both on and off the court. Made in France.

2. adidas KB8

Player: Kobe Bryant

Year: 1997

Kobe Bryant’s first true signature shoe in name, the KB8 was as aggressively styled as a shoe can get. Utilizing the then-ubiquitous “Feet You Wear” outsole design (which, considering how footwear design has gone, was way ahead of its time), the KB8 is still a perfectly good performance shoe nearly 15 years later. Reborn as the Crazy 8, it’s seen time on Derrick Rose’s feet in the NBA, along with college teams sporting their respective team colorways.

3. adidas Jabbar

Player: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Year: 1971

What most people don’t know is that aside from Kareem being a trendsetter on the court with his style of play, he also was the first celebrity to endorse a basketball sneaker. Labeled as a must-cop back in the ’70s (ask Bobbito), you could catch Kareem performing his patented sky hook against his opposition with this pair on his feet. The highs were retroed a while back, but Kareem was mostly a low-cut guy — and the suede ones with his likeness on the tongue were simply amazing.

4. adidas Mutombo

Player: Dikembe Mutombo

Year: 1992

Back in ’92 Dikembe Mutombo was a scoring and rebounding machine for the Denver Nuggets, part of the same Georgetown lineage that produced Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning. With an attempt to capture Mutombo’s African heritage, this signature from adidas incorporated patterns and coloration to reflect Mutumbo’s roots. The shield on the tongue and the “55” on the side rounded things out lovely.

5. adidas adiZero Rose 1.5

Player: Derrick Rose

Year: 2010

Trying to capture Derrick Rose’s talents in a sneaker can be tough — he plays the game effortlessly with but doesn’t hesitate to play defense, cross up his opponent, or put an opposing player on a poster. The followup to D. Rose’s first signature joints was lighter than its predecessor, but kept the Adidas DNA intact via use of suede and (on some versions) a Superstar-style contrasting toecap.

6. adidas TMAC 3

Player: Tracy McGrady

Year: 2004

You might remember the TMAC 3 best from the 2004 NBA All-Star Game when McGrady sported a shiny mismatched pair. The 3 improved on the TMAC 2 by moving the vestigal “shelltoe” even further off the toe, adding 3D Torsion, and going with todays theme of building a low-top sneaker from the bottom up using adiPRENE technology.

7. adidas Ewing Attitude

Player: Patrick Ewing

Year: 1987

A high-tech (at the time) shoe with some molded detail on the upper, the adidas Attitude was a full-on performance shoe in the late ’80s. The distinctive high tongue and dual-color stripes stood out in the Madison Square Garden paint as a young Patrick Ewing took on all comers. During the 1980s many of adidas sneakers were being manufactured in France, leading to a durable leather upper making this signature last more than a few games. Jeremy Scott would probably have these ranked higher.

8. adidas The KOBE

Player: Kobe Bryant

Year: 2000

This may not be the first time a sneaker has been designed after a car, but adidas went further than usual in utilizing actual Audi designers. The Kobe gets its inspiration from the Audi TT, something adidas thought was important considering the love for cars in the Los Angeles area. The three main concepts adidas wanted to borrow from Audi was continuous lines, a clean surf body, and a bullet nose toe box. All three were achieved and The KOBE was created.

9. adidas EQT Elevation

Player: Kobe Bryant

Year: 1996

Back in ’96 Kobe was coming off the bench rocking adidas, and the Equipment Elevation was his signature shoe in all but name. During his early days as a Laker Kobe could be seen in the EQT Elevation, a loud signature with a large adidas logo on the upper side ankle. Kobe didn’t see the court much that season which is why this is one of the more forgotten signatures that The Mamba has rocked during his time in the NBA. (And the purple pair he wore in the ’97 Dunk Contest is one of the holiest of grails.)

10. adidas C-Billups

Player: Chauncey Billups

Year: 2006

Mr. Big Shot is one of the greatest clutch players in the game, hitting countless buzzer beaters and daggers while a member of the Pistons. Billups rocked these — his only signature joints — during his the 2006-’07 season and also regrettably wore a red, white, and blue, pair with stars for the All-Star game during the ’06 season. These brought classic late-’80s style to a state-of-the-art game shoe, which is tougher to pull off than one might think.

11. adidas Real Deal II

Player: Antoine Walker

Year: 1998

Back in the days before he became a cautionary tale, Antoine Walker was Employee No. 8, shimmying and shaking his way through big moments for the pre-Big Three Boston Celtics. The Real Deal II didn’t have much to do with the original Real Deal — worn by adidas youngsters including Tracy McGrady — but it was a de facto signature shoe for Walker. The iridescent green pair he wore for a while were totally amazing and need a re-release pronto.

12. adidas adiZero Rose

Player: Derrick Rose

Year: 2009

Derrick Rose’s first signature shoe moved the stripes to the back (’cause he’s so fast that’s the only way you’ll see them) used a liberal application of SPRINTSKIN and utilized an ankle collar that would accept his ever-present ankle braces. This All-Star version was, um, bright.

13. adidas Gil Zero

Player: Gilbert Arenas

Year: 2006

Oh, Gil. Agent Zero’s first adidas sig utilized the then-prevalent Formotion Ground Control System (in other words, pods) and — predating the adiZero Rose — swept the Three Stripes nearly off the shoe. The Wizards colorway seen here was one of the best, and while there was a mid-cut version, Gil nearly always played in lows. He also wore an UNDRCRWN version that no doubt broke any number of NBA uniform rules.

14. adidas Superbeast

Player: Dwight Howard

Year: 2010

Big men don’t sell shoes? Oh really. Dwight Howard is part of the two-headed adidas NBA superstar monster consisting of himself and Derrick Rose. The Superbeast is the second edition of Howard’s signature which drops the bulk of his last pair and gets a considerable lighter change adding Sprint Skin technology. adidas also added Alive technology to help brace the impact after Howard dunks on his opponents or swats the ball eight rows deep into the crowd. Plus, they look good.

15. adidas TMAC 2

Player: Tracy McGrady

Year: 2003

It took a while for Tracy McGrady to find his niche in the sneaker game, wearing various PEs for his first few seasons, but once McGrady hit the courts with his TMAC signatures he killed the competition. The TMAC 2 was an evolution of the somewhat awkward TMAC, and was both sleeker and lighter, befitting McGrady’s all-around game.

16. adidas KB82

Player: Kobe Bryant

Year: 1998

Way more complex than the original KB8, the KB82 made use of mesh overlays and somewhat more sublimated Three Stripes branding (which actually extended into the midsole and were visible via a plastic “window”). Feet You Wear was still going, and Kobe Bryant made good use of it as he continued his transformation from over matched rookie to the best player in the game.

17. adidas Top 10

Player: Doug Collins, Kevin Grevey, Marques Johnson, Adrian Dantley, Bob Lanier, Bobby Jones, Billy Knight, Sidney Wicks, Mitch Kupchak and Kermit Washington

Year: 1979

Back in the late ‘70s adidas wanted to design a signature for the best players in the league, they did just that with the adidas Top 10. The Top Ten nickname came from obvious reasons of giving the Top Ten players their own sneaker and players like Rick Barry were known to sport this state-of-the-art creation. Honestly, these are all-time classics and would be ranked much higher except a) they’re not the signature model for one particular player and b) the “Top Ten” designation was a bit of a stretch.

18. adidas TMAC VI

Player: Tracy McGrady

Year: 2006

In 2006 Tracy McGrady was beginning to catch the injury bug, one game he had to leave on a stretcher his back spasms were so bad. It wasn’t the shoes. The TMAC VI was the highest-tech version of his signature line to date, utilizing Ground Control pods and a higher-cut upper than earlier models. There was also an UNDRCRWN-designed style that would have suited Dikembe Mutombo.

19. adidas Ewing Rivalry

Player: Patrick Ewing

Year: 1986

The Rivalry was a proto-Attitude, with a higher cut and a somewhat cruder design. That said, it was Patrick Ewing’s first signature shoe — back then a tremendous honor for an adidas athlete — and one of the first to sport the Knicks blue and orange. Plenty of team colorways were also available, all with the EWING logo on the tongue.

20. adidas TS Lightswitch Gil 2 Zero

Player: Gilbert Arenas

Year: 2007

Gilbert Arenas might be the biggest sneaker fan of all the NBA players, so big that he wanted to give away his collection to his fans via Twitter. While with adidas Arenas wore the Gil 2 Zero which was released in 20 (yes, twenty) different colorways, two of which were for the general public, the rest were limited to only a few hundred pairs. Some themed colorways that were part of the limited drops included NBA Live 08, Halo — since Agent Zero loves video games — and Looney Toons for Arenas’ son, just to name a few.

21. adidas Skyhook Plus Low

Player: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Year: 2007

If we remember correctly, these Kareem Abdul-Jabbar literal (check the ankle) signature shoes were not a true retro — rather a “what if?” kind of pseudo-retro piece. Awfully nice of them considering Cap finished his NBA time in L.A. Gears, something we’d all rather forget.

22. adidas Kevin Garnett III

Player: Kevin Garnett

Year: 2006

Kevin Garnett seemingly bounced around from one brand to the next over his basketball career wearing every possible sneaker that he could. During his stint with adidas, the Garnett III stormed on to the scene with the breakthrough full-length Bounce cushioning. This was KG’s last signature as a member of the T’Wolves before heading to the Boston Celtics (the one shown is a particularly garish All-Star version).

23. adidas TS Commander Lite TD “Skeleton”

Player: Tim Duncan

Year: 2009

Apparently adidas hooked up a lot of their NBA players with the “Skeleton” version of the TS Commander Lite for Halloween 2009, but Tim Duncan liked his so much that he wore them throughout much of the season and made them into his de facto signature shoe. Roll the bones.

24. adidas TMAC

Player: Tracy McGrady

Year: 2002

Tracy McGrady’s first signature shoe sported a very different design element from adidas — a modified “Shelltoe” that stretched back into the midfoot. While distinctive and respectful of adidas basketball heritage, it added a bit of misplaced chunkiness to an otherwise sleek and modern shoe.

25. adidas The KOBETWO

Player: Kobe Bryant

Year: 2001

From a sales and popularity standpoint, the adidas The KOBETWO was an unmitigated disaster. It landed in outlets for rock-bottom prices, people complained about the way the synthetic material creased, and even Kobe Bryant himself returned to wearing its predecessor, the KOBE. That said, the second in the line of Audi-themed Kobe signatures was a tremendous on-court performer, the fit and finish was second to none, and there was no way you’d ever mistake it for anything else.

[Complex]