This time, it appears it's not a case of "if the shoe fits," but of whether Nike shoes can take a spin move by a robust six-foot-seven-inch tall, 285-pound college basketball player, Zion Williamson. A whirlwind force on the court and an athlete with a future before him spelled NBA BIG LEAGUES; the eighteen-year-old upcoming athlete injured his right knee in the game of the season when his left foot burst through his Nike PG 2.5 shoes as he was about to dribble.
And now shoe giant Nike is in trouble.
Williamson took the tumble Wednesday evening 33 seconds into his Duke basketball team's game against underdog North Carolina, after suffering his Nike shoe emergency. The college basketball star did not make a reappearance for the rest of the match, and his Blue Devils team lost to NC's Tar Heels 72-88.
Williamson's non-reappearance at the game of the season was attributed to what Blue Devils Coach Mike Krzyzewski referred to as a "mild knee sprain," a Grade 1 knee sprain. However, while the young player merely seems to have suffered a minor injury and is expected to recover, the question is, will Nike?
Thursday, the day after the game, the shoe giant experienced a seeming fallout stemming from the Williamson incident. Its company stock fell, down to 1.05% at the close of day, trading $83.95 a share, down by less than a dollar from the previous day's closing at $84.84, and lost a whopping $1.12 billion. It appeared that investors of the sports shoes and apparel company were none too happy about the fashion emergency on the college basketball court Wednesday.
But is Nike to blame for this incident? Zion Williamson seems to be a force of nature, with an out-of-this-world kind of pull. It is not the first time that something seemingly impossible has happened with him at a game.
At his team's victory over Louisville, on February 13, 2019, a snapshot of a moment where he grapples to take the ball away from Louisville's Jordan Nwora very clearly shows how unbelievably strong he is. Zion Williamson's fingers take barely a hold of the fully inflated basketball, but where his fingers are touching it, there appears a dent on the ball.
So is a shoe bursting apart? Nothing can hold him down; it would seem.
Though, the heat was too much for Nike. Or it could be the irreversible fact that former United States President Barack Obama was caught in a video that has already gone viral, catching him saying as he watched Williamson clutch his knee, "His shoe broke."
To exert some damage control, Nike released a statement saying the company was looking into the issue and that they "are obviously concerned and want to wish Zion a speedy recovery."
