Last night, Brandon Jennings notched his first career triple-double in a Milwaukee Bucks 98-88 win over the Charlotte Bobcats. What was also special about the occasion was an exclusive Halloween edition Under Armour Black Ice shoe Brandon wore, until he didn’t. CounterKicks contacted the NBA to find out why. Continue reading for the full scoop.
Treating Bucks fans last night to his first triple-double performance, Brandon Jennings was also due to be tricked out in a special make-up pair of Halloween Under Armour Micro G Black Ice shoes. Seen in a Black/Orange color scheme, Brandon laced up his custom sneakers and wore them in pre-game shoot around as seen in the photo below taken by Milwaukee Bucks Senior Sales & Retention Executive Nick Monroe on Twitter.
Then, minutes before the Bucks vs. Bobcats game officially started, Monroe followed up with a Twitter comment saying that Jennings switched out of his Halloween Black Ice signature shoes for a pair of white Under Armour’s (a previous season Under Armour BB Prototype model, to be exact) because the “team has to all wear white or dark shoes.” This isn’t entirely true, at least not anymore.
NBA Marketing Communications Manager Kristin Conte tells CounterKicks that beginning last season, the NBA relaxed its official rules regarding footwear colorways which previously required teams and players to wear primarily white-based shoes for Home games and black-based shoes for Away games. Now, individual players may choose to wear any percentage of black or white along with team colors on their shoes throughout the season. In effect, this dissolves the decades old mandatory imposed tradition of white/Home, black/Away footwear styles that still informs most players and companies sneaker marketing today. Conte says that this specific NBA footwear rules change was designed to allow teams to unify around all of their team colors rather than just one specific color as in the past. Further, players on a team do not all have to wear the same color or shade sneakers together. For example, Brandon Jennings could wear a mostly black-based shoe that incorporates team colors while the rest of his Bucks teammates wears white-based shoes.
The NBA also allows for designated Special/Event calendar days where footwear brands may create special make-up sneakers, to be pre-approved by the NBA, for their athletes to wear in games that follows alternate color guidance (green and red shoes for Christmas, all green shoes for St. Patrick’s Day, etc.). Halloween happens to be one of those Special/Event occasions on the NBA’s official schedule.
With all this knowledge in mind, Brandon Jennings should have been able to wear his custom “Trick Or Treat” Under Armour Black Ice shoes. Except, as Conte points out to us, that Halloween is on the NBA event schedule but Halloween Eve isn’t. The Bucks played Saturday night in Milwaukee, a few hours before Halloween officially began.
