words, images & interview // Nick DePaula
as published in the March iPad Issue of Sole Collector Magazine
As the second half of the hoops season begins to wind down, once again Nike Basketball is looking to introduce an update to their well-adopted Hyperfuse that’s geared for the home stretch. Last year, that shoe was the Air Max Fly By, worn by forwards and bigs alike after the mid-year change out.
This year, whether it’s on the feet of the NBA’s best as the playoffs get underway or on 52 of the 68 Nike-wearing teams in this spring’s NCAA tournament, the goal was to
get even more accommodating and universal for all five positions on the court. Improved fit, flex and traction were a few of the key items the new Zoom Hyperenforcer aims to get after when players will be depending on it most, and to find out all about things like the shoe’s intricate tongue construction and the dialed-down traction pattern, we checked in with Nike Basketball Design Director Leo Chang. Check out our discussion ahead for all of the details on what will be this spring’s most widely worn model.
Nick DePaula: You had both the Hyperdunk and the Hyperfuse to start the season. Where does this fit into the line? Is it kind of in between the two?
Leo Chang: Actually, it is. When Shane Kohatsu, Fred Dojan and I were talking, they had been working on something that was basically a combination of Flywire and Fuse. We really started that on the LeBron 9, and that was the first time that we used the two together. The idea was, “How do you get a little more structure to the Flywire?” Flywire is definitely a bit more minimal and Fuse gives you that structure and rigidity. We wanted to blend the two, and that’s really where we started.
We also wanted to look at the Fuse composite package in a different setup. There’s no bootie inside of it, and we actually pressed the lining layer right into it. That’s something that we were really talking about as a group. Tracy Teague, our Creative Director, and I were talking and he was just saying how when these guys are making their run for a trophy, whether it’s college guys in March Madness or pro guys come summertime in the playoffs, they don’t want to have any distractions. They don’t want to have stuff to think about, and in some ways, the shoes should almost disappear. That was the thought that went through my head in designing this shoe. I wanted to look at the areas where there could be some potential irritation. That’s where the foot flexes.
NDP: Of course, right through the toe.
LC: Yeah, and typically, you’ll have a lot of layers there. You’ll have the bottom of where the tongue attaches and the U-throat of the eyestay there. By shifting the attachment of the tongue up a bit and having it hinge higher up, it allows us to get rid of that pressure point in the toe and we’re able to have a smooth flex through the forefoot. If you move that all the way up, the big issue is you still want to be able to lace down lower, though, so how do you do that? Another thought was around doing something interesting and clever with the construction and just die-cutting out slots that could act like an eyestay and allow you to lace right through the hole. It’s really integrated and more close to the foot. The whole idea of integration and zero distraction was something that really drove how we were thinking about the layers and placements of seams.
NDP: Once you started to get into the actual building of the composites, where did this shoe end up in terms of thicknesses and similarities to past shoes?
LC: With the Flywire pattern, we have our best practices in terms of how we lay out the Flywire for the dynamic motions of basketball. When Shane and Fred and those guys in the Kitchen were all thinking about this stuff, they said, “What if you give the minimal amount of off-set from those threads with the Fuse base layer?” You really increase the dynamic nature of it all and allow the upper to move and conform around the foot. From that, we really started out having the base layer around 2 mm and offset from the threads. It became really thin, and we wanted to strip down the Fuse structure to have it be as thin as we could get, and then we reinforced that with the Flywire. Our longterm testing was going to tell us if that’d hold up or not, and there were times when it was failing, so we had to go in and re-adjust the tolerance just a bit more. It’s a fine tug and pull of how minimal we can make the package and bars. That was an interesting problem solving thing that we were going through.
NDP: Design-wise, it kind of follows through that same flowing graphic and color block along the collar.
LC: I’d say so. We looked at this shoe and were thinking that the forefoot is pretty breathable and dynamic, and what if we were able to fit in a little bit more protection around the collar. This collar has more foam and a higher density pocket in there than the Hyperfuse or Hyperdunk. That should give you great lockdown in the heel and security in the heel. It’s funny, though, because the design actually started out on existing tooling. We were going to carry over the Hyperfuse 2011 tooling – midsole and outsole – and that for us was a bit of a struggle. It was such an iconic part on the Hyperfuse.
NDP: Plus, that outsole had already been carried over from the first Hyperfuse, too.
LC: Yeah, and we were thinking about bringing over the midsole wing again, and you know what, people weren’t going to be able to get over that. It was just going to be another Hyperfuse 2011 or .5 or something, and we didn’t want to create that. We went through rounds of exploration of what a new sidewall look could mean.
We then started out with looking at that foam part and thought about replacing that foam part with a chassis that would be a lighter-weight TPU chassis. That part would just have all connected as one. At the end of the day, we just felt like it was still just too close, and we have a sample of it that was pretty close. We were even going to call it Hyperfuse 2.0, and it could’ve been cool, but it just felt too similar. Another thing we looked at was the translucency of skins. Mixing colors and getting into a new territory on the upper could be cool.
Luis Sanchez: Like the Max 2012.
LC: Yeah, exactly! It was done right around the same time, and we were looking at layering the materials to give some depth to the colors. Just dialing in the right translucencies was really hard, and you can tell how we started with a ton of layers. You really have to have the right colors and the right base; otherwise it looks like mud or some of the skins can look really ashy on a black base. Our marketing guys were looking at some of this stuff and just saying, “Guys, this is not really working.” [laughs] And they were right; it just wasn’t looking right. We have some executions out at retail now, and we didn’t quite get to the extreme of having a rainbow of colors in there, but we have colors on the heel of the white bases.
NDP: The Hyperfuse had a standard herringbone pattern along the whole outsole, but it looks a bit more involved here.
LC: If you start from the bottom up and look at the outsole now, it’s a finely tuned herringbone for the motions of basketball and having durability in mind. If you look at the lateral edge of the forefoot, the beveling is actually more skewed towards the lateral side. Then you have the toe-off area, and that is angled back a little more. As you look at the heel, there’s a bevel in the direction to help that breaking motion. In the midfoot, it actually spaces out more because you don’t need as much traction there. You need traction and durability under the ball of your foot and in the heel. You’ll see the beveled surface of the herringbone actually get wider in those high-durability areas, too. This was a pattern that took me forever to finely tune in there – every bevel and every flattop surface – to get the spacing all just right.
NDP: Working with the factory, that’s something that’s pretty easy to get just right in terms of those minor differences and variances in the pattern?
LC: Yeah, and once you create enough cross-sections in the drawing, they can usually get the pattern pretty right. Just getting to that point took forever, though. That’s something that you’ll see across the board on a lot of our basketball shoes. Since it works, let’s try and continue that as we go further.
Another thing that’s fun and interesting on the outsole, that you pointed out earlier, is this squishy comb-like geometry in the heel. I’ve just always been intrigued by how we could create cushioning in a different way or a different sensation in the rubber itself. It actually started from a project I did when I was in Running, and it never went anywhere. We don’t do enough of that, and it was a great opportunity to sculpt it out a little bit there in the heel and create some deflection and some cushioning that way.
NDP: The midsole is pretty close to the Hyperfuse?
LC: Yeah, it’s real close. We have the same forefoot Zoom unit and then our same Phylon midsole. One thing we
really wanted to do, though, was have fun with the aesthetic of that midsole. We ended up having a topographic and real natural feel to it. We don’t do enough things with midsole sculpting, and when you think about why people like Posite, it’s just an expressive nature and there’s cool molding. I wasn’t trying to do Posite here or anything, but if we have foam, we can have some fun with that and sculpt it out.
This was a fun one because Nate Braithwaite, our 3D guy, was really looking at it with me and working to get the best sculpting that we could. We started out looking at ripples of water and the fluidity of that, and it’s surprisingly hard to mimic. Once you lay the texture over it, it gives it a whole different feel.
NDP: With you guys coming off of the Hyperfuse just a season before, was there any feedback from those that helped to influence the Hyperenforcer?
LC: Yes. I think the stiffness of the Fuse was something that we looked at.
NDP: That was my biggest problem – just the stiffness of the flex point. It felt like the toe piece that came up and in was a little more stiff and rigid than I’d like, and it was right through the flex.
LC: Yeah, and with the Fuse package, it’s always going to be a little more structural, but hopefully this will feel more broken down and softer. We’ve actually gone away from the synthetic base layer that we normally used in Hyperfuse in the past and we’ve gone to a more textile base. It’s a thicker textile, but it’s softer and still has that structure to it.
NDP: One thing you kept right in the same zone is that
forefoot toe rubber wrap.
LC: And that’s simply because it’s worked great for durability. A lot of times when you see those low toe-wrapping outsoles,
you’ll get some delam over time right in there along the
sidewall. On a lateral cut or a jab step, that’ll just peel off
on more powerful guys.
NDP: It seemed like I saw a ton of feedback around that problem on the Hyperdunk 2010.
LC: Actually, the original Hyperdunk 2008 also got really thin in that same critical zone. You can get a lot of delams right there, and you want it to be flexible, but you also want it to hold up. It’s a tough spot. We had no problems with the original Hyperfuse, and we looked at that as a potential best practices item to really continue with.
NDP: Russ [Westbrook] is, of course, a main guy wearing the shoe, but was there anyone in particular in mind that this shoe was designed for? Or was it more for that every man as we get into tourney time?
LC: It was more about the college guy, sure. We rolled out our Elite college uniforms at the same time, and it was all about outfitting a team and providing accessibility to everybody.
