Not for long arduous walks across the citytown — for that we’d opt for some leather and cork trekreadies — but for a nice most-of-everyday cross-trainer/errand runner (pick your favorite exercise) — you can do far worse than the modern basketball sneaker. Pick your favorite sneak company, better yet buy one you haven’t tried before. The heavy padding, the pull-tab tongue/heel, the rounded outsole (which we like to imagine are amalgamations of our human sole <analytics> they often are); they’ve come a long way baby. We don’t even play (unless you count NBA Jam), but love to watch and listen. Pro ballers have to sprint, stop-on-dimes, and leap — putting amounts of abuse of the knees — that means for an average Android10-using Jane or Joe that likes to do the walk-thing and perhaps a little dancercise — hoops shoes are better than running shoes. Mainly because they feature flatter toe spring , but also you get superior jumpability in lateral directions while runners primarily favor forwardness. De-fense. Mine sure helped me a couple times bounce over puddles and hop out of the way of myriad various micro mobility vehicles that infest the city streets and sidewalks nowadays. Baseball players wear B-ball kicks sometimes in spring training, and they’d certainly be suitable for something like kickboxing practice or weightlifting.
To all my #over40 sneaker enthusiasts whose interest in B-ball kicks may have peaked some time last millennium — new designs flat out have potential to leave last century’s decade’s stompers in the dust. They used to hoop in Chucks ya know. New offerings of the past 2 to 4 years have evolved in design and no category is more on the come-up than womens’. Companies like UA, Puma and others are showing data that proves simply shrinking a ‘male’ shoe is not good enough. There’s more variation in the average shape of a female foot. WNBA players are getting fresher deals and signature models. If you haven’t been to a specialty shoe store since forever, no matter your age or sex, go on then (only so many pictures you can zoom in on online). High-top, low-top (love us a good mid-top), imagine Harrison Ford’s voice as Han or Indy — trust me — if you don’t already know. Try some new school basketball sneakers. For walking. You can show a shoe dog new kicks. Dreams may come true. Congratulations to the Celtics on the Atlantic conference win. It was a fun season. Walk well all. Have a potato chip. Be on-guard for the 3 (wheelers on the sidewalk).
