642337

According To Dell Curry, Nike’s Last Contract Negotiation With Steph Went Epically Bad

According To Dell Curry, Nike’s Last Contract Negotiation With Steph Went Epically Bad

Steph Curry Nike Deal

Nike is all about winning. It puts out the best product year after year and last week’s Innovation For Everybody showcase proved that the brand is still pumping out some of the most advanced athletic gear out there. More importantly it was a statement saying loudly that it recognizes the growing competition, and a word like complacency is simply not in its vocabulary. Speaking of competition, the sole reason why Under Armour is in the conversation is Steph Curry. In late 2013, Curry left Nike for Under Armour, and it’s widely accepted that the reason for his departure was that Under Armour just made a far more lucrative offer and that Nike didn’t really see Curry’s potential as a pitch-man. Steph went on to have an MVP and Championship season, and somehow he topped that 2014-2015 campaign with an even better year. Couldn’t have written it any better for Under Armour and vice versa for Nike, but new details regarding Nike’s last-ditch pitch to Steph near the end of 2013 makes their decision to let him walk appear laughable.

According to ESPN True Hoop, Steph Curry’s camp, led by father Dell, said that Nike never saw him as a top tier player. He was never offered an offseason Nike basketball camp for youth (instead given Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving) and it was clear to them that Steph was never considered in the tier among LeBron, KD, and Kobe. By was Nike wrong? Absolutely not. Nobody predicted Steph’s insane breakout, not Nike and not even Under Armour, but there were clear signs that that game was evolving in favor of Steph, giving him the opportunity to be considered an elite player (record-breaking season, trip to Western Semi-finals). Here are the juicier details: In August of 2013, Nike and Steph’s camp had a meeting in Oakland to discuss his future with the brand. Leading the meeting was Nico Harrison, who incorrectly pronounced Steph’s name and accidentally left Kevin Durant’s name on a powerpoint presentation made to the Currys (which led them to believe that the presentation itself was a copy-paste, basic job). True Hoop’s article goes much deeper into the Under Armour deal and the world of sneakers, so check it out here.

Latest News

Fifteen Can't Miss Sneaker News Headlines From March 30th - April 5th

’ top headlines of the week for the first week of April brought us the first grumblings out of Virgil Abloh’s Off-White camp in...

by Ben Felderstein October 24, 2024
1

As The New NBA Season Begins, It’s Time To Build The Perfect Basketball Sneaker Rotation

The world’s of basketball shoes has never been so deep, so finding the right shopping destination that covers as much of the landscape as possible...

by Ankit Solanki October 24, 2024
0

The KEEN UNEEK Is Commanding Attention In The Growing Outdoor Trend

In modern footwear, the lines between the functional and the fashionable continue to blur. In terms of what companies produce and consumers demand, shoes are...

by Ankit Solanki July 19, 2024
143