Stephen A. Smith has a simple yet specific theory for why Kevin Durant got hurt once again and he's placing the blame squarely at the foot of a major company.
A hot take specialist wading into the waters with a completely unfounded theory? Color me shocked!
On Thursday, ESPN's top daytime pundit and 'First Take' commentator blamed Nike when discussing KD's latest setback with the Suns. More specifically, Smith called out KD's long-standing choice to wear low-top sneakers.
"Listen, I'm a fan of Nike. Nike's the creme de la creme. But I gotta tell you something right now, I've never liked KD's sneakers. Ever! From the standpoint of them being low tops.
"Whatever happened to protective wrapping your ankle? I'm not saying he doesn't wrap it up because obviously, he does. But I'm just saying, my Lord, I just look at a grueling NBA schedule, running up and down the basketball court, how physical the game can be, how much you use your legs obviously. You're making sharp cuts, you're jumping, you're coming down, all of this other stuff.
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"I've said constantly throughout the years, I've never liked the fact that I always saw him in low tops. I'm not talking about the quality of the Nike sneaker or the KD-15 or whatever they're called these days. I'm just saying: whatever happened to high tops?"
.@stephenasmith doesn't believe KD's Nike low-tops protect him at the level they should 😬
— Sporting News NBA (@sn_nba) March 9, 2023
🎥: @FirstTake pic.twitter.com/dLVZeRO9Jx
Whew! There's a lot to unpack.
- Saying whatever happened to wrapping ankles before then saying that A) he doesn't know if Durant does and B) saying he's certain he does.
- Lots of NBA players wear low tops. LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kyrie Irving, Paul George, Luka Doncic, Trae Young... the list goes on and on. It's not just Durant and hasn't been for a very long time.
- The insinuation that ankle injuries never happen in high tops is just spewing utter nonsense.
- Does Stephen A. Smith really think that Nike's engineers haven't done their homework on injury prevention and design?
In fact, that specific last point is a topic that dates back over a decade back to when Kobe Bryant faced backlash for his new signature shoe.
MORE: Every NBA player with a signature shoe right now
Kobe Bryant, Nike and low-top sneakers
The debate over superstars, low-top kicks and injury concerns is a tale as old as time. Or in this case, dating back 30 years.
Way back in 1993, a University of Oklahoma study later published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine uncovered no relationship between ankle injuries and shoe height. There has been a myriad of other studies since with no real consensus, part of the impetus that led Kobe Bryant to push for a controversial low-top shoe back in the mid-2000s.
As detailed in a 2008 ESPN feature, Bryant — an avid soccer fan — tasked Nike's performance footwear creative Eric Avar to take the same principles behind revolutionary lightweight soccer cleats and apply them to basketball. Said Avar in the ESPN feature, "It was pretty remarkable. Here was the greatest basketball player in the world telling me that he didn't need all this stuff around his ankle. And he wanted to prove that to everyone from Nike to fellow NBA players to the consumer."
Contrary to Stephen A's assumption that high tops are safer, Bryant and Nike posited the opposite. Lighter shoes — such as the Kobe IV's which debuted in 2008 and weighed just 11.6 ounces, 20% lighter than typical basketball shoes then — kept players safer, allowing them to move faster and jump higher while carrying less weight.
Fast forward 15 years and the majority of NBA players, including the likes of LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kyrie Irving, Paul George, Luka Doncic and Trae Young, rock low-tops.
MORE: Stephen A. Smith blames LeBron for ruining dunk contest
NBA ankle injuries
What does the data say about ankle injuries? And is there any validity in tying it to shoes?
For starters, not every ankle injury is the same. A high ankle sprain is an entirely different injury than your typical sprain.
Some are flukes that have nothing to do with anything beyond bad timing (i.e. landing on another player's foot) while others (i.e. Durant slipping during warmups) are non-contact incidents without any rhyme or reason.
While we can qualitatively say with relative certainty that more players wear low-tops now than previously, there is no definitive data. So while we can look at the number of ankle injuries, we can't compare that to the total number of players wearing certain types of shoes.
According to Spotrac's invaluable injury tracking, 129 players have missed games due to ankle injuries this season. That's more than any other body part with illness (124), knee (97), back (61) and foot (46) rounding out the top five. In terms of total missed games, ankle injuries account for 762 missed games, or roughly 17% of all injury-related absences. While that's up from the 13% figure cited in the 2008 ESPN, it's worth noting that Spotrac's data only extends to 2016 so the methodology is certainly different and thus unable to provide any definitive change over time.
What we can do though is look at how ankle injuries have changed year over year.
| Season | Games Missed | % Due to Ankle |
| 2022-23 | 762 | 17% |
| 2021-22 | 1,056 | 16% |
| 2020-21 | 918 | 17% |
| 2019-20 | 530 | 12% |
| 2018-19 | 872 | 16% |
| 2017-18 | 836 | 15% |
| 2016-17 | 505 | 12% |
While there isn't a dramatic change over the last three years, there is a slight rise in percentage of ankle-related injuries. Is it statistically significant or any cause for setting off alarm? Talk to your community college's local statistics professor.
Kevin Durant shoes
Kevin Durant's current shoes — the KD15s — are the latest low-tops in his run of signature shoes. As recently as 2011 with the Thunder, Durant has rocked the low-tops.
Durant's first shoe, the Nike Zoom KD 1, debuted in 2008-09 and was a traditional high-top. It wasn't until the 2010-11 season with the advent of the Nike Zoom KD III that he transitioned to the low-top design he's rocked ever since.
When Durant does return, perhaps it will set off yet more debate about what kicks he should or shouldn't be wearing.
