It’s Trash Day–Li Ning Brassmonkey Evan Turner

It’s Friday, time to take out the trash.  We’ve all seen the in flux of Chinese shoe brands Peak, Luyou and Li Ning being sold in the U.S. market. A lot of American players are jumping from the traditional shoe companies to the new brands. I was excited to see what the shoes would look like.  Would they be copies of existing shoes? What new technology would they add to the shoes? Well the shoes have all dropped and nothing has really changed.  One thing they did was make a basketball shoe much uglier. It should be no surprise to any of my readers that I am not a fan of current basketball shoe styles.  The new Chinese shoes have just added more horrible shoes to the market.  The worst so far has to be the brand new Li Ning Brassmonkey Evan Turner Allstar, a name so long I couldn’t even fit it in the title box. Just look at this shoe.  It basically is a basketball shoe, ankle support and moon boot all in one.  Were they trying to build the worlds tallest shoe? Is this shoe not ridiculously tall?

The shoe is called brassmonkey because it’s a tribute to the famous song, of the same name, by the Beastie Boys.  Now if I was going to make a shoe that is a tribute to a song or even the band, wouldn’t you want the shoe to have something on the shoe that mentions the band or the song.  A logo or word or something that has to do with either the Beastie Boys or the song.  Also why is the shoe silver; why not make the shoe the color of brass? The only part of the shoe I understand is the lace guard to keep your laces tied, but it’s also the ugliest part of the shoe.  It’s just a giant button flap. It kind of looks like an athletic cup, like the kind you wear in little league.  This shoe is a mess. It’s tall and wide and it looks like 5 different shoes jammed into one shoe.  This shoe makes all the hypermax, hyperdunks and hyperfuse shoes look fantastic compared to this towering inferno.  I am pretty sure Evan Turner had nothing to do with the making of this shoe. It was probably some guy who has never played basketball, but studied ever aspect of the game and knows the human body really well.  This guy also has no idea of what a great shoe should look like or if you making a tribute shoe put something on the shoe that has something to do with the song.  I know most of these shoe companies have just started making shoes and they haven’t quite nailed it yet.  I hope this is just a phase and we will start to see some classics coming out of China. (pics from Crooked Tongues)