All Ball Sports: Skechers: We Got Next; Sea Hawks, Mustangs Friday Night Lights [UPDATED
by Paul Teetor
[UPDATE: Manhattan Beach-based Skechers announced on Thursday, October 26, that New York Knicks all star power forward Julius Randle, and Clippers fast rising shooting guard Terrance Mann will be the first NBA players to compete wearing Skechers new line of basketball shoes. Skechers already sponsors professional runners, golfers, pickleball players and soccer (global football) players. According to Skechers’ statement, Skechers is producing two mid-top basketball shoes. The SKX Resagrip “is designed for players who move at top speed…” Its SKX FLOAT offers “game changing stability…to help lock the foot in place.” The shoes will be available next week in stores, and cost $150, according to the Skechers statement.]
NBA All Star and former Laker Julius Randle will be playing for the Knicks this year in Skechers SKX FLOAT shoes. Photo courtesy of Skechers
For more than 40 years, street ballers have been “just doing it” with Nike basketball sneakers. Nike controls an astounding 86 percent of the “performance” basketball shoe market and 96 percent of the “lifestyle” basketball shoe market – “lifestyle” meaning the kicks you wear to impress your girlfriend, your homies or your friends. You wear them to da club at night but you would never get them dirty on a hoops court.
Either way, Nike has cornered the basketball shoe market.
Adidas has tried to challenge Nike, Under Armour took a run at them, and even Puma has tried to make inroads into their market dominance. All of them have fallen far short.
Nikes — or the Jordan brand, which is part of Nike — were worn by 77 percent of NBA players this past season. Simply put, almost all the biggest single name players – no last name needed — wear Nikes, from KD to Giannis to LeBron. All of them have signed long term deals, and all of them have signature shoes.
Now there is a new challenger to Nike’s hoops dominance: Skechers, based right here in little old Manhattan Beach.
Skechers?
Huh?
The shoe brand that’s not even hip enough for affluent hipsters? The shoe favored by fast-fashion high school girls, by Swifties and by old guys who like the slip-in models because they don’t have to bend over?
Although nothing is official yet, last season’s NBA Most Valuable Player, Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, showed up at the ‘76er’s practice facility this week wearing Skechers new, still un-released basketball sneaker. The company’s performance staff was in attendance to monitor his movement and comfort level with the new shoes.
Skechers PR spokesman Jennifer Clay declined Monday to confirm or deny that a deal with Embiid was imminent.
But if all goes well, according to reports out of the ‘76’s camp, Embiid will soon sign a mega-deal and Skechers will begin the long slog of challenging Nike for even a small share of the global $130 billion sneaker market.
Nike couldn’t have chosen a better face of the franchise. Embiid is a team player, a hard worker and a media friendly guy besides being a mobile, agile big man with a soft shooting touch.
He kept his cool and didn’t dive into the drama even as two superstar teammates, Ben Simmons last year and James Harden this year, demanded to be traded out of town and started acting out when the team did not honor their requests fast enough.
Clippers power forward will play this season in Skechers SKX RESAGRIP shoes. Photo courtesy of Skechers
Nike better step up its game. Skechers is also apparently going to sign the New York Knicks Julius Randle and the Clippers Terrance Mann, according to reports out of the ‘76ers camp.
In the past, Skechers has been associated with several big-name athletes, including Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw, boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, and quarterback-turned-analyst Tony Romo.
Embiid will take them to the next level. A six-time All Star in the prime of his career at age 29, Embiid is a slam dunk for the local shoe giant.
Skechers: We got next!
Redondo, Mira Costa on Collision Course
It was a first for the 2023 high school football season: both Redondo and Mira Costa won their games on the same night. And in the process they raised the stakes for Friday night’s annual backyard brawl between the two arch rivals.
They both now have 2-2 Bay League records and will be fighting to claim third place – or possibly even second place, depending on the results of other games — in the league after opposite starts to their season.
Redondo, which started 5-1 overall and looked ready to challenge Palos Verdes for league supremacy, will be coming into the rivalry game hoping to salvage their season after a late swoon with losses to Culver City and PV.
Mira Costa, on the other hand, can do more than save its season after an 0-7 start that appeared to doom them to one of the worst records in school history. They can pull off a miracle.
The Mustangs rebounded from their 0-7 start to beat Santa Monica last week and then followed that up by beating Peninsula 35-15 on Friday night. So now, if they can beat a short-handed Redondo team and finish with a 3-2 league record, it will be the greatest comeback since the Boston Red Sox came back from a 3-0, two-out ninth-inning deficit to beat the New York Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series — and went on to win the World Series for the first time since 1918.
It’s unlikely that Costa will get to participate in the postseason playoffs because of their 0-7 start to the season, but a 3-0 finish after such a discouraging start will be amazing nevertheless – should it happen.
But first they will have to go through Redondo, which proved Friday night that it can win a game even when it is severely shorthanded.
With starting quarterback Niko London missing his second straight game due to a concussion, Redondo turned to a wildcat, on-the-ground game plan and posted a 28-7 Bay League win over Santa Monica.
But this time, instead of using running back Ethan Maleman at quarterback, the Sea Hawks unveiled a surprise starter at quarterback: junior wide receiver and defensive back Cadence Turner.
“I played quarterback when I was younger,” Turner said. “We knew our quarterback was going to be out so I had to step up and take the leadership role. We had a good game plan by the coaches and our execution got us a good team victory.”
Turner’s night featured a wildcat-heavy offense where he took the direct snap and ran the ball seven times, the same number of passes he threw.
Those seven rushes by Turner netted 67 yards with a 13-yard touchdown while his 89 passing yards featured two touchdown passes.
The Sea Hawks jumped on top of Santa Monica right from the start when, on the game’s very first drive, junior safety Ezequiel Johnson – who’s been a ball hawk all season long — intercepted Santa Monica sophomore quarterback Wyatt Brown’s pass attempt.
Turner immediately got the Sea Hawks a 7-0 lead with a 24-yard TD strike to sophomore wide receiver Bo Ausmus in the end zone.
Santa Monica leveled the score on the following drive with a 5-yard run by senior running back Caden McCallum, but the Sea Hawks shrugged that off and took control from there.
“We lost Niko and lost 42, nothing last week,” Redondo coach Keith Ellison said, referring to the pounding they took from PV. “I think this is the first game where it clicked for us on special teams, offense, and defense, so I’m really happy with the boys’ efforts today”
Ausmus added his second touchdown of the night with a 29-yard run to make it 14-7 with eight minutes left in the first half.
On Santa Monica’s next drive, Brown threw another interception – he had four for the game — when Turner, now playing defensive back, picked off a pass that put Redondo on the 13-yard line.
From there, Turner completed his rare DB/QB double play with a rushing touchdown to put the Sea Hawks up 21-7 just before halftime.
The Sea Hawks put the game away at the start of the third quarter when Turner found Charlie Stober for a 15-yard touchdown and a 28-7 lead.
Up next is the Bay League finale for both teams. Santa Monica will host Culver City while Redondo, possibly without London again, will travel to Mira Costa.
“Costa has beaten us the last few years,” Turner said. “With or without Niko, we’re ready to come out and play our hardest.”
Costa, riding the momentum from its win over Santa Monica, utilized its newfound running game with Matt Miller to complement its passing duo of junior quarterback Nico De La Cruz and senior wide receiver Reese Leonard to beat Peninsula.
But the real back-breaker in the Mustangs victory was a 47-yard pick six by Bradley Shearer midway through the fourth quarter that put the game away.
Now all their focus – for both the Mustangs and the Sea Hawks – turns to Friday night’s rivalry game. It’s the best kind of match-up: both teams have momentum, and both teams have good reason to believe they will win.
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