
You can also find this spring technology in the brand’s Concept X basketball shoes. The compression spring - lovingly referred to as Load ‘N Launch technology - has been repurposed for local court play, where the rules are a lot more freewheeling. The APL Concept 1 has been reimagined as the APL SUPERFUTURE (yes, it’s spelled with all caps). Now, in honor of the ban, APL has re-released the shoe to the public. While the brothers eventually came up with another design suitable for play, the shoe joined the famous Air Jordan 1s as a shoe banned from play (although unlike APL, Nike had the money to pay the fines when Jordan insisted on wearing his iconic kicks on the court).
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It was deemed too much of a competitive advantage for professional players, so the NBA banned the shoe for professional play. A techy yet still really cool-looking sneaker, the Concept 1 also packed the ability to take players’ abilities to new heights, literally.Ī compression spring underneath the ball of the foot increased the vertical leap of players by 3.5 inches. A decade ago, APL founders and brothers Adam and Ryan Goldston introduced the APL Concept 1 shoes.

So how does a new entrant into the space differentiate themselves from what’s come before?įor APL, otherwise known as Athletic Propulsion Labs, dropping a basketball shoe of their own meant actually breaking the game.

Because basketball shoes are such big business, competition is incredibly steep. Yes, basketball sneakers have become a massive industry, with some of the top players in the NBA having their own shoe lines and even (in some cases) their own entire brands such as Air Jordan or Curry Brand. When it comes to basketball, the words of Mars Blackman continue to resonate decades later: “It’s gotta be the shoes.” If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, SPY.com may receive an affiliate commission.
