adidas Top Ten Hi

About

The adidas Top Ten Hi debuted in 1979 as one of the first true performance basketball shoes from the brand, built with input from NBA All-Star Rick Barry, who helped adidas design a shoe meant to work for any position on the court rather than one specific role. Instead of signing a single spokesperson, adidas enlisted ten NBA players — Doug Collins, Marques Johnson, Kermit Washington, Adrian Dantley, Bob Lanier, Bobby Jones, Billy Knight, Sidney Wicks, Mitch Kupchak, and Kevin Grevey — to represent the shoe, which inspired its 'Top Ten' name. The high-top silhouette pairs a leather upper with suede overlays across the toebox, a padded ankle collar, an unsecured old-school tongue carrying the Top Ten logo, and a solid rubber sole stitched around the midsole. Writer Bobbito Garcia later credited the Top Ten with ushering in a 'new era' of specialized sneaker design, and in 1996 adidas introduced the Top Ten 2000 variant promoted by a young Kobe Bryant. adidas brought the original Top Ten Hi back as a retro lifestyle release in 2014, alongside stablemates like the Superstar, Gazelle, Campus, and Forum.