Asics Gel Spotlyte - Now Available

When you think of Asics, basketball does not come to mind. However, Isaiah Thomas wore them way back in ’92, and they’re making a retro comeback.

Two colorways are available now, none of which look to be a Pistons colorway, which in my opinion is strange; I just find it appropriate for a first retro to be the colorway of the player’s team. The white pair takes on more of a Knicks color scheme, using blue and orange accents along with a cement-like print on the mid panel stripes and tongue. The black pair uses more of a Raptors-like colorway with purple and red details all on a white midsole.

Both these colorways are now available at Premier for $120. Let us know what you think down below and if you’re looking to cop.

Via Premier

Hey Wuke,

How are you going? I just got two pairs of Asics Basketball shoes that I ordered from Rakuten, but I got the sizing wrong. I went with the info one of the stores gave me and I ordered size 29.5cm, which when I got them, the label underneath the tongue said size US12.0. 29.5cm would have been correct with Nike, Adidas or Under Armour, but I needed size 29.0cm in Asics to equal my regular US11.5.

I guess I will just keep them as it’s only half a size, but they’re still bigger than I would have liked. I am a little disappointed that the store gave me the wrong info. I actually tried asking you and Alan in another thread before placing the order, but I guess it was too old and you guys never saw my question in regards to Asics sizing. For questions like that, I would have loved if it was possible to send members here at Weartesters private messages.

Apart from the sizing, the shoes are awesome. I haven’t had a chance to play in them yet, and not sure if I can give an accurate assessment as the sizing is bigger than I am used to, but as far as just wearing them goes, they feel awesome. I really, really like them.

The shoes I bought are the GelHoop V6s and GelLegend 5s. First thing that I noticed is that Asics seem to have a very unique ventilation system as they both have holes in the out sole, which I assume it for ventilation, so not sure if they would be wearable outdoors when it’s wet or raining. Have you worn any of your pairs outdoors when it was wet? Do they get water inside the shoe at all? The Gelhoop V6s ventilation is crazy. They have a couple of mesh sections underneath the shoe in the middle of the outsole for ventilation to go along with the other holes on the outsole, plus mesh sections throughout the upper. I’d say these would score very highly for ventilation on Nightwing’s grading system.

I also ordered the new GelBurst RS 2 (I actually put that order in before I ordered the above two pairs of shoes), but I stupidly canceled the order as I thought size 29.0cm is too small. I’m going to look like an idiot now when I try to re-order them after telling the store that they were too small and I was after a size US11.5. Hopefully they understand what I am saying, because that store is the only one that I dealt with that didn’t seem to communicate in English very well at all. I had to run their emails through Google Translate, and the small amounts of English that they did write in their emails, it seems that they ran that through Google Translate themselves ;).

Anyway, apart from sizing issues due to some wrong info from one of the stores, I’m happy with the rest of the service from the Rakuten stores I bought shoes from. The shoes look great and they feel like they will be pretty good performers. It only took 7 days to get here from Japan to Australia, which isn’t too bad of a turnaround time.

Nighwing, you think you’d be interested in trying out a pair of the newer generation Asics basketball shoes for a review? I’d be very curious to see how you’d rate them. I think I will get another model or two myself, definitely think I will get a pair of the new GelBurst RS 2s if I can find them in my size. Thanks to Wuke and Alan for actually mentioning that Asics still make Basketball shoes. I had no idea they did until I read it here a few weeks ago.