The future Hall of Fame sharpshooter recently reflected in Dallas on his 10 years with Anta ahead of the launch of his tenth “KT” signature sneaker.
To this day, one of my favorite interview quotes ever came from Klay Thompson back in the early summer of 2017. We were on the last two days of a frantic six-city, nine-day schedule, where the legend of “China Klay” was born, and the former Warriors star with two rings in tow was touring around Asia on behalf of his shoe brand partner, Anta.
He’d be launching his third “KT” signature shoe that fall and had just signed a new 10-year extension with the brand worth up to $80 million. Needless to say, Thompson was in a great mood as we took in the sights of his completely insane Presidential Suite at the Mission Hills Golf Resort in Shenzhen during his one “off day.”
He reflected back on the biggest off-court business decision of his career just a few years prior, in 2014, when he passed on more modest offers from Nike and Adidas after his third NBA season to instead sign a signature shoe deal with Anta.
“I was going to hopefully be the Michael Jordan one day of Anta,” Thompson, then 26, told me at the time of his thought process.
Nike was only in its infancy in basketball when Jordan famously signed with the Oregon company in 1984. The Jordan Brand alone now tallies more than $7 billion in annual revenue of Nike Inc.’s nearly $50 billion total annual revenue. Thompson was hoping for a similarly lofty path with Anta.
Bleacher Report immediately aggregated the quote into a dramatic and grand graphic, with Michael Jordan in his third signature shoe photoshopped in. When I followed along for Thompson’s tour again the following summer, I was floored to walk into an Anta boutique in China and see that exact as-is image of Jordan alongside Thompson, with the quote, blown up across an entire store wall. (Usage rights were perhaps loose then!)
Now a decade later, Klay Thompson is launching his 10th signature shoe with Anta, making for the longest-ever series for an active NBA player with a Chinese brand. His newest shoe, the KT 10, features a variety of roman numeral X marks throughout the design, along with ten support wires along the sides of the shoe. The lead “Time Capsule” and “Crossing Time” colorways speak to the impact he’s had over his ten years with the brand.
He’s paved a path in footwear that has led to one of the most mutually lucrative endorsement partnerships in NBA history. He is just the 10th player in league history to release ten consecutive signature shoes with the same brand during his playing career.
Across a variety of models and price points in the decade since, Anta has sold more than 10 million pairs of Thompson signature logo branded sneakers, along with an endless array of signature apparel and basketballs.
“I don’t think I’m MJ,” Thompson joked to me recently in Dallas, when I reminded him of the original quote.
The Air Jordan series has now extended well past Michael’s retirement and includes more than three dozen models, he noted. I mentioned to Klay that Michael’s Chicago career did come to a close in his 14th shoe.
“Oh — I’m getting close,” smiled Thompson. “There we go.”
The success of the deal has become “hard to even dream of,” the 34-year-old adds, exceeding the grand expectations he had back in 2014.
“It was breaking barriers and helped to grow the game,” continued Thompson. “It wasn’t popular yet to branch away from the typical brands. I went out on a whim, and it turned into this kind of shoe empire.”
The brand, founded in 1991, had signed a handful of NBA players before him — namely, Luis Scola, Kevin Garnett, and Rajon Rondo towards the later stages of their impressive careers. Klay’s signing came at the perfect apex of both his rise in the game and the brand’s expansion throughout Asia. Even now, he can glowingly pinpoint various details from the original Los Angeles pitch meeting in 2014, just before his fourth season began.
“I got some Rajon Rondo gear, and I was so excited because they wanted me to be a signature athlete,” recalled Thompson. “They offered me something that no other big shoe brand would — the opportunity to be a face of a global brand.”
Anta’s web of nearly 10,000 retail doors across Asia was in place during the height of the Warriors’ historic run, fueling a real runway for a signature business to be born. For comparison’s sake, Foot Locker has around 2,500 stores globally.
The brand keyed in on specific games and moments of Thompson’s to connect with fans, creating apparel capsules and special edition-themed sneakers that celebrated his 37 points in one quarter or his 14 3-pointers in a single game. Both are league records that still stand.
“They were taking a chance on me, and I was taking a chance on them. It was a match made in heaven,” Thompson says now. “When I started wearing Anta, my career just took off. I was able to break some records, win some championships, play in All-Star Games and Olympic gold medal games.”
From the brand’s perspective, it was the single most important signing it had made to date, as Anta looked to grow its brand presence globally and key in on hoops as a sharp point. The company has since expanded exponentially across various sports, with annual revenue growing more than seven times since 2014 to around $7 billion.
“Klay is really the one that helped to build Anta into a basketball brand,” Ben Tsai, GM of Anta Basketball, said from the company’s Xiamen-based headquarters in China. “Consumers know us through our icons … Klay is the icon that truly transformed Anta Basketball.”
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By the time Thompson and the Warriors became annual NBA Finals mainstays after 2015, the brand had begun hiring American designers specifically to elevate its basketball innovation. Anta landed both Robbie Fuller and Duane Lawrence in 2016, who had each designed the early breakthrough models for the likes of Derrick Rose at Adidas and Dwyane Wade at Converse, respectively.
It didn’t take long for Anta to begin designing sneakers specifically around insights from their signature headliner. Fuller, the Creative Director of Footwear, had keyed in on Thompson’s “Get Hot, Stay Hot” mantra on the court, helping develop a forefoot-geared innovation around the shoe’s stance to keep players up on their toes for quicker catch-and-shoot situations.
“We made it for his move,” Fuller told me in September in Xiamen. “His foot wants to be up. He’s cutting around, catching, and wants to shoot. Probably not going to dribble. As fast as you’re trying to get that ball off, that has steamrolled all of these years later into having that forefoot technology.”
The KT 3 and KT 4 in 2017 and 2018 notably took things to a different tier, as Thompson’s play and profile had warranted an elevated product lineup. The footwear was now extending to multiple models and designs each year, beginning to range from $70 to $140 and even as high as $190 for a teched-out “Pro” version.
“At our peak, one signature shoe could sell a million pairs here in China,” revealed Tsai. “The highest one is KT 4.”
In each year since, even as Thompson faced a tandem of injuries and rehabs that sidelined him from the court for 941 days in between games, the KT brand and his connection to Anta has lasted.
More recently, a key branding opportunity came together, as Anta became the official uniform sponsor and provider for the Bahamas national basketball team a year ago. A push from Thompson, honoring his father Mychal’s Bahamian heritage, led to the deal.
Early on, his lengthy annual summer tours saw him visit additional cities outside of the typical major staples like Shanghai and Beijing, where NBA stars often host events, establishing a presence throughout the country.
His embrace of local activities and customs always felt genuine. His honed ability as one of the game’s greatest shooters ever pedestalled an aspirational skill that all young players could work towards emulating. He was also always a good sport — like losing an arm-wrestling match only because his opponent tickled him.
Then there was the time Thompson infamously missed a 360 dunk during an event — five times in a row, to be exact — that made for a level of relatability and resilience that has always resonated since. (And tallied 27,000 retweets and views around the world.)
“No pun intended,” Thompson begins. “But I want the fans to say, ‘He was a warrior, and he played through whatever he had to, to reach the mountaintop.’”
Now entering his 14th year as a new member of the Dallas Mavericks, there’s been an obvious shift from his cemented Hall of Fame run in the Bay Area as he enters a new chapter of his career.
“I feel rejuvenated and so lucky to still be playing this game, after so many years, at a high level,” he notes.
Thompson signed on with Dallas this July, exactly one year after Mavericks point guard Kyrie Irving had signed with Anta, bringing the brand’s two biggest stars together.
“Kyrie and I go way back,” smiled Thompson. “The 2011 Draft class, playing on Team USA together, battling against eachother in the Finals for many years. Now, we’re teammates, and it’s a full circle. The fact that we’re wearing the same shoe brand now is even cooler.”
Each season, his Anta sneakers will often include a single word or phrase that comes from Thompson to describe his approach for the year. With a new role in Dallas, the inner heel of the KT 10 reads: “Selflessness.”
“From my experiences, especially in the last 10 years, if you want to reach the mountaintop, you gotta be selfless,” he said. “That’s what I want to bring to this city and to this team. Sacrificing individual accolades and whatever statistics you’re shooting for, to try and win a championship and share that knowledge with my teammates. That’s the motto for this year’s shoe, and I think it’s going to translate to the court.”
Already, Thompson and Irving have brainstormed beyond just their respective signature shoes as they look to continue to grow the brand’s presence in China, in Dallas, and around the world.
“We’ve talked about doing things together in Asia,” said Thompson. “Doing some really cool exhibition games, shooting clinics, or streetball competitions. The ideas are flowing, and it’s going to be special. We have a lot of great things ahead. Kyrie is one of the best players ever, so it’s an honor to have him on board.”
In addition to hosting their own potential tandem tours or activations, the brand also has plans to further build out Thompson’s own “Shooter 11” camps, where he keys in on instructing players throughout Asia on the fundamentals and art of shooting.
“We are going to build out these camps throughout his career and even post his career as a continuing platform,” said Tsai.
Just as Yao Ming established a nationwide fanbase for the Houston Rockets in China during the 2000s, Anta execs are hoping the pairing of Thompson and Irving in Dallas and their massive fanbases can help to extend Anta’s recognition throughout Asia, as well as locally in Dallas.
Thompson recently held a meet and greet with fans as he officially launched the KT 10 model at Shoe Palace in the Galleria mall. Irving has held his own block party and launch event at Sneaker Politics in the city’s Deep Ellum neighborhood.
“Anta and Dallas are closely connected now,” said Tsai, adding that the Mavericks are rising in fandom throughout China. Over the last year, he and other execs have gotten familiar with the fifteen hour flight from Asia. Anta’s dozen-plus US-based team of designers, sales, and marketing execs at its Santa Monica office are also frequently traveling back and forth to meet with the Mavs duo.
For Thompson, the last decade has undoubtedly been filled with highs and lows of all extremes as he’s built out a global brand presence and marketing platform. Whether that meant launching viral sneakers informed by his pre-game ritual of reading a newspaper, highlighting his purposefully goofy “China Klay” persona, or celebrating each of his four championships with shoes like the “Gold Blooded” KT 8 in 2022, all along, Anta has been along for the ride.
“I’m so grateful for their backing, and it’s inspired me to keep going,” admitted Thompson. “My time in Asia, the Philippines, and all over the world has been so special. To grow the game and see the fans is something I don’t take for granted and will cherish for the rest of my life.”
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