By Bob Ray Sanders
bobray@star-telegram.com
During the NBA finals this year, I was pulling for the Miami Heat to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder -- a team I really like -- primarily because I wanted to see LeBron James be part of a championship team and quiet his critics, if only for a brief moment.
In the London Olympics, I naturally cheered for LeBron and his American teammates as they played for the gold medal.
Though I've watched this phenomenal player a lot in the past couple of years, I must admit I never really paid attention to what he was wearing on his feet until news this week that Nike was producing the LeBron X Plus athletic shoes, selling for around $300 a pair.
The basketball player reportedly debuted the new sneaker bearing his name during that gold medal game. I wouldn't know for sure because, as I said, I wasn't really looking at his shoes.
I've never understood the celebrity sports shoe craze, in which people will spend their last dollar on a pair of sneakers that have been endorsed by a famous basketball player. Oh sure, I've realized for a long time that Americans in particular will overspend on a brand name, but the psychology that is involved with buying these superstars' shoes borders on addiction or lunacy.
Aside from the outrageous purchase prices, too many young people (and a growing number of old ones) place an inconceivable and disturbing non-monetary value on these items.
People actually have been attacked and killed over a pair of "tennis shoes."
Last year and earlier this year, there were riots from Florida to Washington state as mobs stormed malls and shopping centers to be among the first to get their hands on the latest Nike All-Star Collection release, especially the Air Jordans.
The melees usually occur when demand is greater than supply, meaning no matter what price tag is on the shoes, there will be plenty of people ready to buy them.
Maybe it is not meant for me to comprehend, coming from an age when the biggest name in sneakers was Converse All Stars that may have cost $15 or $16.
They weren't fancy. In fact, when I think back, they were rather bland. The canvass high-tops were black with white trim -- on the soles, tip of the toe and the strings, as I recall. And while there certainly were youngsters envious of guys whose parents could afford them, I never heard of anyone getting shot or stabbed over Converse sneakers in those days.
But that was then. Today it's Nike, Adidas and others who can pay the big bucks for an NBA player's name on their shoes.
It would be easy to blame the company for creating such a product, marketing it to impressionable young people through the highly paid superstars and then greedily racking in the profits. But that's their right. Besides, Nike says the increased price of its shoes is due to increased material and labor costs.
Some also put fault at the players' feet, so to speak, for being more interested in dollars than the impact on young vulnerable kids and their families, and for not pressuring the companies to produce less-expensive shoes. I, however, don't hold the athletes responsible.
I put the blame squarely on parents, some of whom will spend the family's rent, grocery and car-note money to make sure their kids are outfitted with the latest Jordans or LeBrons, regardless of cost. Some simply can't or won't say
no to their kids.
Consider that a feature of the new LeBron X Plus, which comes out this fall, has some kind of motion sensors built in that will tell wearers how high they're jumping.
Now imagine two kids on a basketball court arguing over who can jump the highest, and then go to their parents asking that they buy them $300 pairs of shoes so they can prove who's most like LeBron or Mike.
What do you suppose the parents will do?
Never mind.
Bob Ray Sanders' column appears Sundays and Wednesdays.817-390-7775 Twitter: @BobRaySanders
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