When you’re an incredible star athlete who signed on with one shoe company for $200 million, it’s probably not the wisest decision to wear the shoes of that company’s competitor out in public.
Unfortunately, that’s precisely what James Harden did by wearing Air Jordans out in public after signing his mammoth deal with Adidas in August. Not surprisingly, the president of Adidas was less than pleased, according to Darren Rovell of ESPN:
A couple of days after new Adidas spokesman James Harden was spotted wearing Air Jordans, owned by competitor Nike, the president of Adidas North America said Harden’s days wearing the Jumpman are numbered.
Asked whether Harden will have to stop wearing his Air Jordan collection in public when the deal officially commences Oct. 1, Adidas’ Mark King said, “That’s part of the deal.”
“The difference between football and basketball is that a guy like Aaron Rodgers doesn’t have a walk-around shoe,” King said. “Harden does, and he will be in our lifestyle stuff.”
Harden has a professional obligation to be seen wearing Adidas moving forward and will certainly have worn any product from Nike for the last time at least for the next 13 years. If he wants to keep his contract with Adidas, that is.
Former player and current Phoenix Suns analyst Eddie A. Johnson saw the news and wasn’t too kind towards Harden:
James Harden will have to stop wearing Air Jordans , Adidas says http://t.co/f6c7ycnwZY 200 million reasons why that was dumb. read my book!
— Eddie A Johnson (@Jumpshot8) September 16, 2015
Jim Park is a blogger and editor of Sheridan Hoops. Follow him on twitter @SheridanBlog