Shock Tactics
Since the year 2000, Vince Carter has been aligned with Nike. By then, he was already known for his high-flying dunks, scorching scoring ability and his knack to turn a game on it’s head in a matter of minutes. His signing with Nike was the perfect time – for both him and the Swoosh.
At the Summer Games in Sydney that year, Carter debuted the Nike Shox BB4. It proved to be the perfect storm. The ingredients all aligned; a young up and coming superstar, a daring new sneaker technology, incredible performance all on the world stage.
But it was, most likely, that iconic dunk over a seven-footer while wearing the Nike Shox that kick started the Vinsanity craze — and the Shox BB4 came along for the ride. You rest you can curate, but that moment is something you can’t synthesize.
“The success of the dunk started the legend of the shoes. But I myself went to another level with them, too. I became a star player in the BB4,” Carter says.
For Carter, the BB4 made immediate sense. He saw how it connected to his game, anticipating how the design, the performance and the associated commercials all would combine to create a moment in history.
“Getting the opportunity to debut a new technology was a no-brainer to me. It made sense with how I played,” says Carter.
His flare for the unimaginable, that dunk in Sydney, was always over the top — so a shoe with just as much audacity was only fitting.
And now, 18 years on, Carter will wear return to the Nike Shox BB4 for the rest of the NBA season, serving as a celebration of the most iconic phase of his career, one where he made kids — and even his basketball peers — around the globe believe that they, too, could take off.