Basketball Diaries: I Balled in Converse Chuck Taylors and Lived To Tell About It

High ankle sprain. Fractured fifth metatarsal resulting in surgery and a pin being put in my foot. Multiple lower back sprains. All of these injuries were a result of or directly correlated to footwear worn whilst playing basketball.

So, you can imagine how particular I am about what I ball in. I only have a few prerequisites, though: wide outsole for a stable base, stable uppers so my foot is snug and doesn’t slide, and comfortable midsole to absorb my aggressive style of play. Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars have not one of those things, and you know what? It wasn’t nearly as awful as you thought it’d be.

My feet were now in an abusive relationship they couldn't get out of.

If your grandparents ever uttered the words “ball is life,” they played in Chuck Taylors. You know those stories they tell about walking five miles to school barefoot? Well, in basketball terms, playing in Chucks was the equivalent to that. Converse All-Stars, dubbed “Chuck Taylors” after its creator, were introduced in 1917 to take on the basketball market and had a stronghold of the market well into the ‘50s and ‘60s, eventually riding into the sunset in the ‘70s.

Of course, they still play a pivotal role in footwear today, but if you step onto the court wearing them, you'll be heavily questioned and likely exiled from said court.

But with all of its rich history and considering how many former Hall of Famers laced them up without complaint or injury, I decided to see if I had the balls to do the same.

Times have changed and the technologies afforded to us are constantly taken for granted, so taking away luxuries as simple as a padded shoe to feel secure in was the least I could do. I took to the hardwood and blacktop au naturale; no orthotics, no ankle braces — just a pair of Nike Elite socks, because I’m not an animal, and my Chucks. Here’s how it played out:

During Saturday morning pick-up games I’m seen as a leader on the court that everyone knows and respects. This will all be tested as I step out in a pair of All-Stars. I’m nervous as hell. Not only do I care not to field a slew of questions, but I don’t want to bust my ass in front of people who consider me a threat. It’s easy to step on the court and look like you can ball before you even touch a rock. And a lot of that has to do with the sneakers you wear. So, as you can imagine, wearing some white Chuck Taylors will undoubtedly make you a target. I got some stares. “You’re not really wearing those, are you?”

Then that respect started to slip.

“Oh yea, I’m taking his ankles with me today.”

“I’m finna torch this dude, what is he even doing here?”

I kept it cool. I was determined to keep these shoes on because I knew that as soon as I got the rock and got a feel for how they'd work on the court, it would be like riding a bike.

Everything went smoother than expected. While I didn’t feel “secure” with the thin canvas uppers, I didn’t feel like I was going to twist my ankle if I sneezed the wrong way either. I was able to cut fairly well, though I was cautious for about 80 percent of my play, and I didn’t have a single issue with slippage. The old school rubber soles held their own on the hardwood and I was impressed. The part that impressed me the most was the overall comfort of the shoe. Now, I’m not saying the shoe was comfortable to ball in, but they weren’t not comfortable.

But there was a big issue that kept me from being as explosive as I’d like — the absence of any type of shock absorber in the sole. There were a few instances I’d jump and come down with no expectation of reverberation through my body, but I’d get a huge jolt that deterred me from takeoff. It wasn’t painful, just shocking really. The lack of midsole would prove to be my worst enemy in this experiment.

In short, I balled the fuck out in some Chucks and was acknowledged as a legend. I removed my shoes after a victorious day and didn’t experience any abnormal pain that my 29-year-old body wouldn’t normally experience after a rigorous day of balling so hard. This could end up being a revolutionary experience.

We got a brand new blacktop court a quarter of a mile from our house, so what better time to christen it then with my new, majestic Converse All-Stars? I think to myself as I head there for a hard one-man workout, “could I bring back the Chuck as a respectable basketball shoe?” No, seriously. I’m no bionic man. I have ailments. I’ve got back spasms from reading the newspaper.

So, if I can wear Chucks and be competitive without injuring myself, can’t others? If you think about it, they are extremely light. They have a slim profile which could help with your lateral movement. An issue that I have with my Nike LeBron XIs is its bulkiness and that deters me from moving from left to right as quickly as I’d like. And as a “power guard” this is a problem. But they're a sneaker I have to wear because of my wide forefoot, something I was sure to be an issue with the Chucks but, again, pleasantly surprised.

I get to the court and begin some basic drills to get warmed up.

The pounding on the blacktop felt as though I was playing barefooted. I was beginning to feel pings in my first and fifth metatarsal head and my heel. Every impact was met with a jolt and subtle but palpable pain. I took a break and tried to get back to it, but chalked it up to sensitivity after day two and packed it up.

The next day was a little different. Maybe because my feet were conditioned to the shoe hitting the blacktop now. My feet were now in an abusive relationship they couldn't get out of, so they might as well make the most of it. When my mind was able to block out the occasional pain on the bottom of my forefoot and heel, all of the other initial successes I experienced were still intact. I had no slippage. No ankle issues when I made sharp cuts. I was able to make all of my natural basketball moves without consequence as long as it didn’t involve any hard hits on the ground. Simple enough.

Back to the gym for pick-up, my Chucks got more inquiries than when I broke them out for the first time. Remember all that success I had initially? The complete opposite happened. Holy shit, I might as well had been playing in my socks.

Not only was I experiencing the same issues I had on the blacktop, but now that the soles were broken in, slippage became an issue. There were several times I went to make a cut, either on defense or offense, and I’d lose my footing. No, I never got crossed up or made to look like a scrub, but the sneakers did me no favors.

The insoles may as well have been made from paper because I could feel every impact. Ankle stability was still enough to keep me from turning them, but at this point, I was playing conservatively in order to keep from losing a leg. Playing scared has never been a part of my game, so playing scared because of footwear issues was something new. I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to go home.

I’ve come to recognize that unlike basketball shoes that become better with wear, this won't happen with Chucks. I’ve taken a few days off to see if the throngs of pain I’m feeling on the balls of my feet will heal, but I refuse to give up on these. Did Wilt Chamberlain give up on them? Did Julius Erving give up? How about Oscar Robertson?

These Hall of Famers played in them day-in and day-out, full seasons in a canvas sneaker that may as well have been less than an ounce, a malleable rubber sole and a toe cap that could be cut with a butter knife. But they got the job done right.

So I went back to the spot where the problems began: the blacktop. I still had some soreness, but my apprehensiveness turned to a full court sweatfest that allowed me to pound the pavement and get one of the best workouts I had in a while. Could it have been the adrenaline from my determination not to quit on footwear that wasn't actually meant to be played in anymore? Was it the windy shifts that was throwing the ball wherever the hell it wanted when it decided to pick up? I don’t know, but I fought through any issues I may have previously had to turn out a respectable day on the court.

The next day wasn’t so inspirational and it turned out to be even windier, and my patience wasn’t the same.

I was now 1-1 with the indoor pick-up game experience and, much like Hov, “ I will NOT LOSE.” Yes, the bottom of my feet were sore, especially my first metatarsal. The ball below my big toe had taken the most punishment throughout this experiment. The lack of cushioning in that spot is certainly something I had taken for granted. Looking at the shoes of today, while they may not put a huge focus on particular spots of the foot when marketing the sneaker, they definitely put an emphasis on spots like that one with their construction.

The Converse All-Star has zero emphasis on any particular spot on the shoe. It’s just one flat sole. Not even an arch support. So without orthotics, which I am positive ballers back in the day had access to, this sneaker is nothing more than a rubber foot pad with shoelaces. Then I got to thinking that once “technology” began to advance, even the Ervings and Robertsons of the world adapted for their own personal comfort. We may not have heard them complain about the shoe or brag about the fact that they were the best players in the world being subjected to such torture, but they didn’t have to because once the next best thing came out, they were on the next train heading straight toward it.

So, decades later and we’ve made many advancements to the basketball sneaker. Padded ankle support. Lunar air-like midsoles. Cotton and Kevlar interwoven uppers. Advancements in footwear that, throughout the years, have made the Converse All-Star obsolete on the court. But they are still very much a part of “the game.” That’s one thing you can’t take away from the legacy of the Converse All-Star.

In short, I took those damn things off, threw on my XX9s and went on with my life because I am but a man of the 21st century writing about a nearly 100-year-old sneaker on a three-year-old Macbook. Isn’t technology great?

Nick Grant is a contributing writer for Complex. You can follow him on Twitter here.