Ahead of the league’s 78th annual campaign, the Swoosh inks 13 newcomers to the Association.
With nearly 70% of the NBA signed to the Swoosh after becoming the league’s official uniform manufacturer in 2017, Nike has gone wide every year in the Draft since. Since, the Beaverton brand has landed nearly a dozen draftees in each class.
The 2023-2024 morning will follow this blueprint. Nike announced its signings of 13 members of the rookie class on Monday.
Boardroom breaks down some of the highlights of the top talent.
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This year, the haul of Nike signings is undoubtedly headlined by San Antonio’s “Wemby.” In just a handful of preseason games, Victor Wembanyama is already proving he just might live up to the lofty hype that marks him as a generational talent. While lacing up his custom size 20.5 GT Run PEs, the Spurs’ top overall pick has been lighting up social media on a nightly basis with his alienesque attributes, featured across the lengthy landscape of highlight accounts to millions of views per post.
Even before his first official NBA game, Nike has already included him in two brand campaigns. Thus far, he’s helped to introduce the new GT Hustle silhouette as part of the “GT Squad” and showcased its sportswear staple Tech Fleece suits in the latest seasonal hues. In traveling to Nike’s Beaverton campus earlier in the summer for those campaign shoots, Wemby missed out on the brand’s rookie summit and group shot that took place in September, which still featured an additional dozen rising stars.
All throughout the 1st Round, the Swoosh showcased sharply strategic signings. After landing the Thompson Twins — who had huge interest from competitors — the brand internally declared a massive win. The duo with prototypical pro athleticism also hold a great story to be told, as they pushed one another throughout their unconventional path to the NBA that led them to Overtime Elite and eventually saw them selected sequentially as the 4th and 5th picks of the Houston Rockets and Detroit Pistons.
When the star twins Amen and Ausar were just 9 years old, they wrote out their “6-9″ dreams” and career ambitions. Amongst the many self-promises was “Get a shoe company,” just under a sketch of the “Fighter Jet” Foamposite. While several dreams still await, they can now check off their shoe company hopes at just 19 years old.
Elsewhere in the class, the brand landed a batch of guards and wings expected to showcase upcoming Nike models like the GT Cut 3, the GT Hustle, and GT Jump. Anthony Black’s court vision should make the Magic a League Pass favorite, Brandon Miller is a natural-born-scorer that’s already donned some clean custom-painted Kobes in Charlotte, and Keyonte George could prove to be the steal of the Draft as an instant impact player for the Utah Jazz.
In all, the Swoosh did well with this year’s crop of talent.
The full 2023 NBA rookie class of Nike brand signings includes:
- Victor Wembanyama – San Antonio Spurs
- Brandon Miller – Charlotte Hornets
- Amen Thompson – Houston Rockets
- Ausar Thompson – Detroit Pistons
- Anthony Black – Orlando Magic
- Kobe Brown – LA Clippers
- Bilal Coulibaly – Washington Wizards
- Keyonte George – Utah Jazz
- Jordan Hawkins – New Orleans Pelicans
- Dereck Lively II – Dallas Mavericks
- Olivier-Maxence Prosper – Dallas Mavericks
- Julian Strawther – Denver Nuggets
- Cason Wallace – Oklahoma City Thunder
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