words & images // Zack Schlemmer
Up for this week's Kicks on Cards collection is a wide variety of brands and years with everything from Hakeem's LA Gears to Kenyon's Flightposite III's.
Up first is the aforementioned Hakeem Olajuwon along with John Battle with two sneaker brands you don't normally see at all, yet alone on the same card: LA Gear and K-Swiss. John Battle was one of the few players in the NBA to ever wear K-Swiss during their short stint in the basketball market. As for The Dream's LA Gear's, they look like a rip-off of about two of three different Nike shoes including the Air Flight '89 and Air Jordan V. LA Gear was notorious for "borrowing" inspiration for their designs from Nike and Reebok. Look up the LA Gear MVP-1 if you don't believe me.
Next we have Chris Webber during his early days with the Golden State Warriors in the Nike Air Unlimited. C-Webb along with David Robinson were the two players most known for wearing this beefy strap-happy (count'em, 4 straps!) shoe from 1994. While David Robinson wore the more favorited White/Black/Teal colorway, the black and blue version worn by Webber isn't too shabby either. We recently got a retro of the similar Air Carnivore from Nike, but many of us are surely wondering what Nike is waiting for when it comes to re-issuing these bad boys.
Speaking of retros, the next shoe spotted is currently at or near the very top of many collector's "Please Retro!" list, the Reebok Kamikaze II worn, of course, by Shawn Kemp. While we may never see a retro of these from Reebok, we will all surely keep asking for one every chance we get. After that we have Michael Finley in the "Laney" colorway of the Air Jordan V which is probably right after the "Grapes" on most people's list of AJ V colorways to be brought back.
We finish up ths week's collection with Kenyon Martin throwing it down hard on in the Nike Flightposite III. (Shoutout to Tom Gugliotta in the background!) The Flightposite III continues the "Please Retro" theme this week, even if it does still look like it's from the future.
So there you have it: K-Mart, K-Swiss, C-Webb, LA-Gear...M-Fin? Let us know your favorites this week and which shoe you'd most like to see re-issued in the comments below.
Hakeem Olajuwon -- LA Gear, John Battle -- K-Swiss
Chris Webber -- Nike Air Unlimited
Shawn Kemp -- Reebok Kamikaze II
Michael Finley -- Air Jordan V Retro
Kenyon Martin -- Nike Air Flightposite III
