Boardroom talks to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander about wanting to “create a movement” with Converse Basketball through the launch of his new signature shoe.
When Oklahoma City Thunder All-Star guard and league MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander signed a new long-term extension with Converse last spring, the deal included his very own signature shoe.
It was a historic distinction for Converse, who had only re-launched its performance basketball category in 2018, stamping “SGA” as the future face of the company. As part of the deal, he was also named Creative Director of Converse Basketball. (The entire category.)
For a brand with more than a century of heritage that’s long stood as the foundation of timeless basketball footwear that’s lived on all these decades later, the options of just what the officially named SHAI 001 signature shoe could look like were endless.
Right away, “SGA” made it clear. He didn’t want to simply look back with a referential approach or an homage-driven design. He wanted to shape the future.
“I was not trying to balance anything,” Gilgeous-Alexander told me matter-of-factly in December. “I wanted to create something new. I wanted to bring Converse into my world and have Converse through my lens.”
The 26-year-old Shai’s “world” is unlike any other hooper on the planet.
A native of Hamilton, Ontario — an hour south of Toronto — his rise as a playmaker and crafty scorer was fueled by mastering tiers of efficiency, skill, and explosiveness rarely seen at the highest level this young. He’s been equally impactful off the court, building out a lane in fashion and style that athletes have only thirsted after in the social media era.
The apex of the spotlight on that on-and-off court blend came to Shai naturally. He is the only player of the modern era to be named to the All-NBA first team while also earning first-team All-League Fits honors in the same season on SLAM’s player fashion platform, not letting one side of the conversation overtake the other.
“I think I’ve been able to stand out and be different than the whole pack with my game and fashion-wise,” said Gilgeous-Alexander. “Staying authentic to who I am is probably the best path. It’s just organic to who I am. … What I find is fire tends to be a little different and ahead of the curve.”
Now a three-time All-Star and the face of the No. 1-seeded Western Conference headlining Thunder franchise, with endless endorsements of his choosing, Gilgeous-Alexander has begun to find his place in the ecosystem of marketing, branding, and on-court play within the Association.
“It’s beautiful,” he said with a smile. “It’s created a whole ‘nother league, literally, inside the NBA. It’s allowed us to show the world a whole ‘nother side of us, which leads to endorsements and all types of crazy things. It’s amazing, and I feel like I got in the league at the perfect time.”
True Creative Directing
As more and more celebrities, entertainers, and athletes began to have the leverage to land brand deals beyond a standard endorsement format, a touted title began to teeter on the expected — Creative Director.
When SGA was announced in his new Converse Basketball role last year, I had hoped they would opt for a more lofty designation. While the phrase has become ubiquitous, perhaps lessened by partners that barely poured in any work and simply suggested colors or materials of their choosing — this is different.
There’s more intent. More input. More control. More conversation. More … actual creative directing.
“It’s a totally different feeling,” Shai says of the new ‘role’ and his input on the signature product process. “Your imprint is on it in a different way. The colorways and everything about it, it’s my identity in a shoe that will be worn by people across the world. It’s indescribable, but one of the best feelings ever, for sure.”
When I first caught up with Gilgeous-Alexander in early December in Toronto, he was taking in one of the final product review meetings with an extensive Converse team of designers and marketing directors, who have looked to him to lead the way throughout the process of creating his first shoe.
As I chopped it up with everyone in the room, glancing at a display of more than a dozen sample colorways, I lobbed out, ‘So, who is the designer here?’
“Shai is.”
For every signature athlete in the decades since the industry-defining Air Jordan series began, there’s a process and timeline that almost every sneaker series follows. Designers huddle up and create a batch of concept sketches to present to the athlete. The athlete picks their favorite design. Then, the team spends a year creating and refining the sneaker.
That was NOT the process for SGA & Converse.
“I’m able to essentially do whatever I want to do with the shoe. How it’s going to play out, the ball is really in my court,” he said. “It’s something that I could imagine every athlete would want to ask for, to try and tell their story and show themselves to the world how they want to do it. To have complete control, it’s a blessing.”
Gilgeous-Alexander relays that growing up in Canada, one of his favorite hobbies since childhood has been sketching. Dating back to when he was 10 or 11 years old when he was “terrible at basketball,” he joked.
Even now, he still sketches. He doodles. He creates. It’s a passion that, by extension, has long drawn him to the world of fashion and the style and design inspirations found in the global product ecosystem that he now has unending access to as a max-money-meets-superstar-status athlete.
Not long after landing his Converse extension, when he knew the team would be working to begin the timeline of his first signature shoe, SGA was busy brainstorming the starting point of what he’d like to see in the SHAI 001.
“I honestly have always had folders of inspirations and shoes that I’ve seen over the years,” he added. “I just came to a point where I sketched and meshed them all together and created something. I love the outcome.”
Foster recalls SGA randomly calling him at 2 in the morning over a year ago. Shai felt he had just sketched the vision for his first shoe.
As SGA continued to brainstorm with the team early in 2024, they focused first on shape and silhouette, drafting from his starting point sketches toward more refined renders and visions. He kept four or five variations of samples at his house.
“I’ve been working with top athletes for 20 years in this field, and I’ve never met an athlete that can sketch like Shai,” said Stephen Keating, Converse Senior Creative Director of Global Footwear. “He completely surprised me — he’s a very talented sketch artist.”
The key parts of the design are that it looks simple at first, until you really delve into the depth of textures, the upward sloping of the padded “puff” zipper shroud, and the uniquely bulbous and perhaps polarizing proportions around the heel and collar.
SGA specifies that the collar portion “adds dimension.” The front half of the shoe is sleek but also takes on a silhouette that feels unique in a world of formulaic signature shoes.
“What’s great about Shai is he’s unorthodox, on and off the court,” said Converse Basketball Product Director Brodrick Foster. “What it translates into in the product is this unorthodox shoe that you’ve never seen before.”
The “wing” gesture on the side is a shape and curl that doesn’t feel familiar at first glance. The midsole dips down into the arch, making for a lowered stance than is typical. The toe-down angle is clean as hell.
“I just kept working on it until I got to a product that I liked and thought was presentable to show to the group,” said Gilgeous-Alexander.
Shai and Converse zeroed in on the resulting approach from ground zero.
“I wanted to acknowledge the past, the history, and all the groundwork that Converse has been to basketball,” Shai added. “But completely turning it, twisting it, and shaping it into my expression, my art form, and my feeling of what a basketball shoe could look like.”
Blending Versatility Together
The other dynamic that sticks out right away with Gilgeous-Alexander is that throughout the timeline, he has placed just as much of a priority on perfecting the off-court look and style of his shoe.
The truth is he’s been comfortable and felt catered to from a performance standpoint for years now. He’s averaged more than 30 points per game on north of 50% shooting in each of the last three seasons. His Converse footwear has undergone subtle design tweaks from year to year since 2020.
The SHAI 001, under the hood, features many of the same performance attributes that the team already knows work for Gilgeous-Alexander. Plush comfort. Locked in support. Zoom Air cushioning. Check. A radial traction pattern in place — for any jab, first step, deceleration, or step back — that works.
“A+++,” he says. The pillars of performance from there include simple checkpoints. “Comfort, durability, containment, and more importantly, style,” adds Keating.
In most footwear processes, an athlete will wear-test their sneaker to ensure the performance meets their needs. That was the easy part in this case — he tested the shoes thoroughly earlier last fall. The broader Nike Inc. corporate entity in Beaverton, Oregon, also ran the shoes through its high-intensity testing protocols that all signature shoes must face.
In a sense, it was the off-court wear-testing that Shai wanted to make sure was also dialed in.
“I tried to wear it with as many outfits as possible,” he outlined. “And as many variations of outfits and different styles: Dress it up, dress it down, wear it with shorts, wear it with sweatpants. At first, it was a little funky and a little too chunky on the back with certain pants. We were able to find a way to slim it down, make it a little bit lighter and more wearable.”
That path and pursuit of both on-and-off-court style ultimately landed the SHAI 001 where Shai wanted all along.
“The story with the SHAI 001, if I had to title the book, would be versatility,” he beamed.
An essential element of having a signature shoe, is having a signature logo. Near his hometown in Toronto, Canada in December, Gilgeous-Alexander unveiled his Converse signature logo overnight before the Thunder were slated to play the Raptors.
Projections beginning at midnight displayed his new logo in metallic chrome, along the massive curved digital board of the Eaton Centre, the region’s largest mall located just north of where he grew up in Hamilton.
A mirrored ‘2’ icon, the logo drafts from sketches that again Gilgeous-Alexander himself created and drew.
Fittingly, the logo only appears in two visible placements on the SHAI 001. There’s a molded logo within the heel piece on the bottom of the shoe, along with an embroidered execution on the top of the tongue, just visible above where the zipper shroud ends. In addition to an adjacent apparel collection, the logo will likely show up in other places or products too.
“I’m not a tat guy,” he begins. “I’ll probably try to implement it into some jewelry, in a way that’s authentic to me.”
Complementary Color
When Gilgeous-Alexander first signed with Converse five seasons ago, he had free reign to create whatever player-exclusive pairs of the latest models he wanted. Early on, he was going crazy.
“It’s definitely evolved,” he now says with measure. “I think I’ve found my lane with simplicity. Earlier, when I was making PEs, a lot of them were loud and fun and vibrant. As I’ve gone through the journey, I’ve found myself navigating and attracted to more simplistic and fading color palettes. … Being able to play with the PEs has given me an identity. Now, I’m figuring out what I like and don’t like, and that’s shaped it to where we are today.”
Earlier this season, he’d often wear an all-blue shoe with an orange toe tip. Then he’d shift to an all-wheat gold or a clean white and pink look. It became more about texture, less about neon and pop colors. As he and the team looked to define the color approach of the SHAI 001 ahead, they landed on more neutrals and more clean tones.
“Simplicity is not simplicity,” he outlined. “What I’m going for, especially in the colorways, is keeping it so simple that it’s super fire. Not many jumping-out-at-you colors. Not many vibrant colors or highlighter yellows. No pink, blue, and purple in the same shoe. I tried to give it visually a smooth approach. It’s so smooth that it’s like, ‘Wow, those are fire.'”
Whether it’s the winged side design, the protruding heel, or the curvatures along the toe, in many ways, the look speaks for itself.
“The design of the shoe is very distinctive. You can see the shoe in its shape,” said Shai. “Because it’s a little bit in your face, I wanted to make sure that the colors were subtle and blending … The shoe is what’s in your face, and the color is just a complement.”
Adding to the Lineage
Make no mistake about it: Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t looking to just launch yet another signature shoe during a season in which a league-record 26 signature shoes have been worn on the hardwood.
He’s fully invested in establishing Converse as a disruptive force within the game for years to come.
“Growing up, it was Nike and Adidas. That was it basketball shoe-wise, as a kid,” he reflects. “I’m really trying to create a movement of this new wave of Converse Basketball. What it looks like, what it feels like, and what it means to the youth.”
Gilgeous-Alexander hopes part of that push will come through his MVP-level play and on-court game, as well as the style he’s become known for during the league’s overexposed nightly tunnel walks. While some players have been burned out by the expectation to have a new fit at least 82 times a season, SGA is still embracing the platform. His millions of followers across social platforms, growing global profile, and elevated ecosystem of additional brand partners have all come at the right time to continue expanding his visibility and star power.
For a process that began nearly two years ago in conversation and contractually over a year ago, that’s all led to the much-anticipated debut of Gilgeous-Alexander’s first signature shoe during this upcoming All-Star Weekend. He’s expected to wear the all-wheat colorway — dubbed “Butter” — for the debut. The sneaker will officially launch later this year during the Fall 2025 season.
“I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t counting down the days,” he laughed. “When I was conceptualizing the SHAI 001 and finally started to materialize it, the anticipation started to slowly accumulate. But when the debut date was set in stone, I started counting down by the hour. I can’t wait for the world to be able to experience one of my most important creations.”
With a rear-view-less insistence on aiming ahead, the shoe’s north star look and feel should usher in a new audience for Converse.
“We’ve got over a century of amazing product in our archive and amazing history,” begins Keating. “But I think about the work we’ve done with Shai and the vision that he’s brought to life with us as the future archive. One hundred years from now, folks are going to come to our archive and find the SHAI 001, and it’ll be a brand new chapter for the brand.”
“Basketball has been our DNA,” adds Foster, before echoing-slash-declaring: “This next shoe is going to take us to the next 100 years of the future.”
For Gilgeous-Alexander, the shoe represents a dream realized, a status amongst the league’s stars, and the start of a path toward pushing what it means to be an athlete intrigued, passionate, and truly involved in every level of the design process.
“I hope my signature sneaker can inspire everybody to explore the beauty in being different. To not fall victim to redundancy,” framed Gilgeous-Alexander. “To always push the boundaries of what the ‘norm’ is. I miss the era of when signature basketball sneakers were performative enough to be played in at the highest level, but fashionable enough to be worn with your most stylish outfit. I want to restore that feeling.”
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