Have you had a chance to talk to him about his vision for Puma Basketball? … It’s the brand that’s gaining the most traction right now. He’s been in the sports world for a long time too … he has a lot he can bring to the table. He’s the best out here doing it as far as businesswise and in the rap game … maybe of all time. And people check for him, as far as music and fashion. It doesn’t hurt, right? (laughs) Everything he touches turns to gold. How important is it to have Jay-Z on board as a creative director of Puma Basketball ? There’s so much diversity in our league, and now we’ll have diversity on the court with the footwear we’ll wear.
It’s dope that Puma wants to support our league. When I think of Puma, I think of Walt “Clyde” Frazier being in the mecca of pop culture where it all started, in New York, and intertwining everything that comes with rebranding.
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What does the WNBA’s partnership with Puma, the brand’s first deal with a professional sports league, mean? But with these, they … felt like a glove. A lot of shoes, when you wear them for the first time, the balls of your feet hurt or the heel of your foot hurts. So it kind of feels like I just had my orthotics in. I went up to Boston and they took my measurements … my foot, my toes, my arch and all those other things go into putting a shoe together. How long had you been testing the new Pumas, and how do they feel out there playing? I got a lot of comments from players, fans and media. It just kind of worked out that around All-Star we were able to finalize that deal, and I got cleared to wear Puma on the court finally … and it was a big weekend. That was actually the day that Puma and the WNBA had signed its partnership. Why was that the moment to debut the Puma Clyde Court Disrupt ?
You continued to wear Nikes up until the 2018 WNBA All-Star Game. The things they had in store for me, and my opportunities to not only be in the basketball realm but also lifestyle, fashion, training, it was unheard of in terms of anything I’d ever experienced in the past working with a sportswear brand.
I went up to Boston and met with the folks at Puma, had a great conversation, and I thought it was pretty dope being the first athlete, male or female, to be signed to Puma Basketball and go forward with their ideas as far as getting back into the basketball sector.Įxactly how much did it mean to you to be the first basketball player to sign with the brand since Vince Carter in 1998? There’s a lifestyle aspect to it that I really admired … so we started talking. So I really love how the brand caters to my lifestyle. Me being an athlete, a basketball player, that’s only part of what I do. Most sports brands just focus on performance, so I really love the lifestyle aspect that Puma has. Really, Puma’s at the top of that list when it comes to versatility and fashion. I had always seen it around, obviously with Fenty by Rihanna … the way that she brought high fashion to a sportswear brand. I was like, ‘Man, are they in the basketball sector? Are they gonna get back in it?’ I thought it was pretty untraditional as far as basketball goes. I work with Jana Fleishman over at Roc Nation Sports, and we had talked. What factored into your decision to join Puma last August? Why did it make sense to you? In 2013, she was the first female athlete to sign with Roc Nation Sports - the agency founded by rapper Jay-Z, who also joined Puma in June as the creative director of basketball. Blazing a trail, however, is nothing new for her.
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Last year, she became the first pro hooper to roll with Puma since Carter. It all started with Diggins-Smith, who signed an endorsement deal with Puma in August 2017 after spending the first four seasons of her career rocking Nikes and another wearing Adidas. Skylar Diggins-Smith, the four-time All-Star point guard of the WNBA’s Dallas Wings, saw the post surface on her Twitter feed and couldn’t help but point out an error. The news shocked the hoops world and quickly turned into a Twitter Moment that announced the NBA prospects had become “the first basketball players to sign with Puma since 1998,” when Vince Carter inked a rookie contract with the brand. The German sportswear company signed the draft’s two top selections, Deandre Ayton and Marvin Bagley Jr., as well as fellow eventual first-round pick Zhaire Smith, to footwear and apparel deals. In the days leading up to June’s 2018 NBA draft, Puma turned heads in an effort to revitalize its basketball division after essentially two decades of irrelevancy.