With the NBA season and NCAA basketball season approaching, the basketball division at Under Armour invited us out to their Fall 2012 product showcase out in New York City. On display were redesigned, lighter uniforms for the select few Under Armour-sponsored college teams like University of Maryland, Texas Tech, and Temple along with various colorways of the new sneakers. UA big-wigs like Senior Creative Director of Footwear David Dombrow and Senior Design Manager of On-Field Adam Clement were also in attendance to break down their products for us and elaborate on inspiration points of the jerseys and sneakers.
As far as Under Armour basketball sneaker releases go for the rest of the year, along with the Torch that debuted at the Under Armour Elite 24 event, the UA Basketball team will release two other silhouettes called the Under Armour Charge BB and Under Armour Spine Bionic.
The Under Armour Charge BB is a sneaker that we have been looking forward to seeing more of since Will Barton lace up a pair at this year’s Elite 24 Midnight Run. Along with the detailed look at the recently released Charge BB, we also got familiar with the Under Armour Spine Bionic.
The Spine midsole was developed by Under Armour originally for running sneakers but has not been retooled for basketball play. Last month when we showed you this sneaker there was speculation that this would be laced up by Blake Griffin. However this exact colorway is most likely going to be seen on fellow Los Angeles Clippers member and Team Armour player DeAndre Jordan.
On display there were a lot of different pairs of the Spine Bionic and Charge BB; some of the colorways are already in stores and a few of them either releasing soon or not at all. Player Exclusives of both for University of Maryland, Texas Tech, and Northwestern were also on display. Amongst the more limited ones are the ‘Marylands Finest’ or ‘Maryland Dodgers’ pack created for University of Maryland game against University of Kentucky on November 9th.
After the press time, an even smaller group of media personalities were driven over to the newly erected Barclay Center and escorted through the VIP entrance into the team locker rooms where we changed into some fresh Under Armour gear and ran some quick drills proctored by basketball trainer Jay Hernandez before giving a pair of their new kicks a few quick runs on one of the Brooklyn Nets practice courts with the in-game narration coming from hood icon Joe Pope. My fascination with the Charge BB led to me giving some burn to those, and I can definitely say the ride was not what I expected but I will go into more detail in my performance review later this week.
Since the release of the Bloodline and Juke, I have been a huge Under Armour fan thanks to their uncanny eye for performance and unique sneaker designs. After getting off to a somewhat sluggish start in the basketball realm, they really look to be on top of things this time around and their kicks are definitely worth a run on the court.
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