He may have gotten cut from Team USA, but John Wall stays winning because Adidas just rewarded him with his own signature shoe deal.
According to the Washington Post, Wall will now be getting his own signature shoe line with three stripes. Wall has quickly become one of the faces of the company's basketball brand after joining them after his split with Reebok.
Wall debuted his signature shoe at the USA Basketball training camp, seen here. The shoe features the signature Adidas stripes as well as a personal logo for Wall himself.
“It’s pretty exciting and fun to know you can have your own stuff,” Wall said last week in Las Vegas. “All the Adidas stuff I wear will probably have my logo on it, just like [fellow Adidas endorser] Derrick [Rose] will wear everything that’s got D-Rose on it. Makes it fun.”
When Wall was drafted by the Washington Wizards as the No. 1 overall pick, he had a couple of sneaker deals looming. He eventually signed with Reebok for $25 million over five years. However, he then left and moved to Adidas in January 2013.
“Reebok was kind of a tough situation because they was trying to get back going and be relevant in this basketball business. I think if any other guy would’ve gone No. 1 [in 2010], they would’ve tried to push it, if it was a guard,” Wall said. “And that’s how it was in that situation. And I was the guy who was No. 1 at the time, so it worked out. They know what they want to do. I could’ve signed with Adidas [coming out of Kentucky] and they said, ‘Go with them and see how it goes.’ And it didn’t work out. I just switched over.”
Wall says the Adidas signature shoe was never planned at all. He had to earn it with good play on the court.
“It wasn’t planned at all,” he said, “because they didn’t know I was going to produce, coming off my injury for one. And then they were like, ‘We can’t put no money into a guy that ain’t going to be playing.’ And things like that. They were going through a tough time with Derrick being injured and they invested a lot of time in him and the other guys around Adidas are happy to have him back playing. But how the season went along and I played big, had a 47-point game. And going into the next season I had the Crazy Quick 2. I started wearing and they were, ‘Well, we think it’s time you start building you marketing-wise.’ ”
Wall played well in the Crazy Quick 2 and proved himself. He ended up having his best season as an NBA pro so far in the Crazy Quicks. He also helped well in marketing, being part of the "Quick Ain't Fair" marketing campaign with the likes of Damian Lillard and A$AP Rocky.
“It’s different. It’s a great opportunity to come in and try to prove myself,” Wall said. “I just think I’m doing a great job of getting my career going the way I want it to be. And I just don’t have to deal with injuries no more.”
Wall said he worked with Adidas designers and had a lot of input into designing the shoe.
“I definitely wanted them to be light. I wanted them to be midcut. I wanted them to be able to come in all different type of colors, like you see [Kevin Durant], LeBron [James] got wild colors you can wear off the court. I’d like to wear my shoe on and off the court, so having my own colorways, I can wear them with jeans and I just wanted to be creative with it and come out with different designs. I think it’s the colors that make the shoes. You got to be able to have different colors to make the shoe hot.
"It’s great, a dream come true. My second one, I can say, but like, my real one. It means a lot.”
