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Kevin Durant Stays With the Swoosh

In a deal that was never in doubt, Kevin Durant will continue to receive his shoes and his money from the Swoosh. Durant had previously been offered a massive $265-$285 million offer from Under Armour, but Nike will match the offer, extending the KD line of Nike Basketball products at least 10 more years. In the first two years of the new deal, Durant will also receive more than his NBA/ OKC Thunder salary of $41.2 million. Nike’s old contract had been paying KD $60 million over 7 years.

What do you think of KD’s new Nike endorsement deal? Is it good for both Nike and KD to continue their relationship? What are you most looking forward to in future KD sneakers? What does this new deal mean for other big name Nike athletes?

Share your thoughts and opinions below, and stay tuned to WearTesters.com for the official details of the Nike and KD deal.

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35 comments
  1. I predicted that he would stay and even debated with some of my friends about this. The man got way more money and Nike made it easy for him to remain loyal. Didn’t KD pick Nike from the very beginning over the other shoe company offers? You can tell that he’s that kind of person where he doesn’t forget where he came from. Look at how he is with is family and the Seat Pleasant D.C. area. Nike and Leo Chang have taken great care of him during his career signed with Nike; no brainer that Nike matches and he stays.

    Also Nike has too much money to let a player like KD go and give up a larger part of the market share. This is Nike applying more pressure on the necks of the other companies attempting to gain on them.

    1. he informed Nike about UA’s offer… why? He wanted Nike to match the offer. Why switch if you can have the same offer?

      1. Credit Roc Nation for that. Jay-Z knows how to get money lol.

        It’s in a company’s interest to not give as much money as it can, but it’s the agent(s) duty to go and get it. Props to the Roc.

  2. “What are you most looking forward to in future KD sneakers?”

    What I am most looking forward to in the future with KD sneakers is the price hike Nike stuck in to everybody as a result of this public deal. To “offset” the costs of the deal, they have already announced they are raising the prices on KDs line. Total BS move. It’s Nike trying to eek every last dollar from us. Me? I’ll go and choose from what, hundreds of other basketball sneakers, a majority of which come from Nike that are cheaper and perform at or possibly even better than the KD line. I don’t fault KD for getting his money. By all means, get paid. Just don’t expect me to help pay you with ANOTHER PRICE HIKE FROM NIKE!!

    1. At this point I think that if Nike steadily increases the prices of KD sigs, they have to make a secondary model available here in the US to honor KD’s request of keeping his shoes cheap. That way Nike benefits from more sales, consumers benefit from more options, and Durant gets what he wants.

  3. Expect $225 KD sig shoes…

    I think I’m gonna continue to go elsewhere and purchase shoes from brands like Way of Wade (Li-Ning), Under Armour, Adidas, and Brandblack.. shoes just as good, but much cheaper.

  4. I’m most happy about the price increase of their shoes. LOL, what a joke Nike is. They’re not going to pay for it, they’re going to make the consumers pay for his contract after increasing their prices.

    If you guys support Nike to do that, great, keep buying their shoes.

  5. I’m not a KD fan, so don’t really care where he went personally. I was mainly interested in him going to UA for the competition it’d give Nike, which would be better for us consumers.

    People that want him to stay with Nike just don’t understand much about competition and that it would be a good thing for other brands to get players of his caliber. When one company dominates like Nike does in regards to Basketball shoe market share, then they can set higher prices because they have no competition from anyone to change that.

    1. Well Adidas has D.Rose which is a very strong brand.
      Not to mention that Adidas also had Kobe, but made a bad move and cut him loose because of his ’03 off court allegations; huge mistake Adidas. There has been a lot of signing with the 3 stripes brand lately though.
      UA has Stephen Curry who is steadily on the rise beyond All Star status.

      The shoe endorsement game is just like the NBA, they have to roll the dice and get them while they’re young and hope that they pan out with success. There are some geniuses at Nike that come up with the tech there and also how they rig the contracts. That match before you bail clause was everything for Nike!

      It’s all Jordan’s fault for giving Nike the head start and lion share’s of the market{sarcasm}

      1. As far as Kobe and adidas, the rape allegations are not what got Kobe off the three stripes. Kobe had gotten out of his adidas contract because he hated the Kobe II and did not like where they were going with his line, so he became a sneaker free agent in 2002-2003 where he was wearing all kinds of brands. It was the summer of 2003 when he got into trouble in CO. Just trying to clarify the story is all. Had nothing to do with the court case.

        1. Yeah I think I blurred the timeline, Kobe was gone and rocking those Huaraches. There was buzz in the news about Kobe losing other endorsements because of Eagle, CO. So the sneaker transition was legit then.

          Nike has the 3 best NBA players on their roster. That star power alone is a driving force for maintaining dominant market share. People snatch up their shoes for casual purposes and not solely for hooping

        2. Thanks for the info Tom A. I thought that Adidas released him. I’m sure I read that at the time, but I guess I was wrong on that.

          That’s the whole point Dime, Nike or Jordan brand usually sign the top few players in the league. I think another brand needs to get a top 3 player to have a chance at making any difference to Nike’s market share, and until that happens, I don’t think anyone can make any inroads into their market share.

  6. I’m a little disappointed actually. I thought signing Durant might take Under Armour to the next level. I cant imagine what more they could have done. $265-$285 million and that’s not enough? Hopefully they will use that money to continue to improve. Hopefully it wont be a huge setback and all we see are minor changes to their line of products. *Cough* Spawn 2 *cough*

    Like others have said… expect a huge price jump from Nike. His basic model will probably be priced similar to his “Elite” models from the past. In fact, they might use this signing as an excuse to raise the prices on ALL of their basketball shoes. Disappointing.

      1. Lance would make sense. UA already has Steph. Maybe they can add James Harden. UA seems to be where Nike was back in early 80s.

  7. For me personally KD’s line has always been about looks more so than performance. I think his 7th shoe has really shown the push of performance. His line reminded me of the lebron line. It wasnt until shoe number 7 where you saw more performance than lifestyle. (Except the 2 and 4) . So for me I don’t really care. Now Kobe’s line has always tried to push for performance over style. That’s why I respect Kobe’s line over KD’s any day

    1. Agreed. IMO Kobe’s haven’t always been the most visually appealing, but they were great (some cases awesome) performers. Can’t wait to see how much “new tech” they add to “justify” their price jacks on the KD line going forward

      1. Besides the 5, with the 7, it is shoe that has good aesthetics along with the performance to match it.

        7 right now is his best signature so far.

  8. Very disappointed in this. I believe UA could have made a great Sig for KD with their top tech at a fraction of what Nike will be charging. And they offered him a huge opportunity to be the face of a company , rather than just another of their athletes. All I hear is people saying Nike was better choice cuz UA is crap n all that. When a lot of them admit they don’t wear anything else but Nike. So how can someone say another companies products are inferior having never used them? People sandling cling to logos rather than actually product.

      1. Unfortunately the spectrum of footwear focuses on the jumpman or the swoosh. People think that anything without those is a joke. It’s a shame though because UA, Adidas, and several international brands are putting out great quality or great performing models. It’s like people live based on hype.

  9. Made sense why Kobe left Adidas if he didn’t like the design of the Kobe II, if went to III, all the designs would have been very similar( Audi design influence)

    If KD’s line has price increase, it should have better tech incorporate in the designs which would be more better reason like so: ” Since KD is endorsement more, we are allowed to put better tech hence retail for his signature line increases.”
    Speaking for others, that maybe or more likely be wishful thinking.

    Not to be redundant in other posts but to be brief, we as people that buy footwear still can diversify/ choose what to purchase.

    1. the spaceship design didn’t work for me. although my complaint about them is that they were uncomfortable, too hard and too stiff. cushion wasn’t the best and quite on the heavy side. same with the TMaCs.

      I guess Adidas learned their lesson with regards to that making the shoes lighter and have better cushioning. then introduced another problem by making some of the narrowest midfoot section designs on some of their shoes. the Boost is a revelation. but again made some ill-advised design for it named the Dames. WTF? why can’t they just create something that doesn’t have something to complain about?

      on the otherhand, Nike is going to where Adidas was before and partially as of now, which is the wrong direction. Nike is putting a lot of those swoosh logo around the shoe that makes it look like a sponsored filled race car. damn ugly.

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