Cameras picked up on the shoe and the Bronny logo before and during the game. There were high expectations that Wednesday\u2019s game would ignite conversation because Bronny and LeBron have an imprint on the shoe.<\/p>\n
Not just about the logo, but as to why a player not in a regular NBA rotation is rocking a specialized shoe.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d have to be naive to think a Bronny logo wasn\u2019t possible. LeBron is one of the biggest stars in Nike\u2019s history and sports history. If his son has a logo and wants it on a shoe, Bronny is getting a logo. LeBron has his own building on the Nike campus<\/a>, so Bronny playing in Player Edition shoes<\/a> should be somewhat expected.<\/p>\n So what if Bronny has played in only 25 games with the Lakers and seven in the G League. He\u2019s going to have access to whatever shoe he wants.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also confusion among those not immersed in the sneaker world. Bronny was not wearing a signature shoe; he was wearing a custom version of a shoe that\u2019s already out.<\/p>\n \n LeBron James (23) greets his son, Bronny, as he enters the game during the fourth quarter of the Lakers\u2019 blowout win against the Atlanta Hawks on Jan. 13. (Kiyoshi Mio \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n A player who\u2019s wearing a Player Edition shoe often features a personalized logo, part of what makes it a \u201cplayer edition.\u201d I\u2019ve seen plenty of logos on shoes that you won\u2019t find in stores. Many athletes have logos, but not as many have signature shoes, and you won\u2019t find gear with those logos in stores.<\/p>\n If Nike wanted to see how the public would respond to this version of the Witness 9 and Bronny\u2019s logo, Wednesday was an ideal time.<\/p>\n The logo itself is smart in that it\u2019s nothing like LeBron\u2019s, which features \u201cLJ\u201d and a crown. Adding the nine gives Bronny some individuality, too. LeBron wore No. 9 during the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, but plenty of Bronny\u2019s peers are too young to remember that year. Bronny himself was born in October 2004.<\/p>\n Bronny was back in Cleveland, where his father played his first seven NBA seasons and then returned for four more years after a four-year stint with the Miami Heat. Entering the game, there would be plenty of cameras on father and son, so it was smart marketing to break out this particular shoe on Wednesday.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also a lot of interest and money to be made with the Bronny brand. Bronny\u2019s NBA Summer League jersey sold at auction<\/a> for $38,400 in 2024. And Nike sold Bronny\u2019s jersey with his name during his lone college season at USC, making him the first men\u2019s basketball player to have his jersey for sale<\/a> as part of the NIL era.<\/p>\n And guess what? Several people will be looking at Bronny\u2019s shoes for the next Lakers game.<\/p>\n No rollout needed \u2014 because his logo and shoes still might be the talk of sneakerheads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was no rollout. You had to be a sneakerhead of sorts, the kind of person who pays…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,2284,150,6,12,2294,10],"class_list":{"0":"post-572532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-draft","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-culture","10":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-nba-draft","13":"tag-opinion","14":"tag-sports-business"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115988693944472042","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/USATSI_28003005-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n