NBA champion with the Bucks in 2021, PJ Tucker has built his reputation on his generosity in effort, his taste for barfights and above all his love for sneakers. In another life for sure, Pierre-Jean would wear a striped shirt and sell pumps in a specialty store. Focus on the shoe emperor in the Great League!
A real boss when it comes to collecting the rarest pairs of sneakers on the market, PJ Tucker has made sports shoes a real way of life. As far back as he can remember, his first pair dates back to elementary school. One Wednesday, he wakes his mother with a bang at 5 a.m. to go and queue in front of a shop. The latest Air Jordan 1 has just been released and there is only one pair in its size. It is out of the question for him that these shoes do not end up at his feet and he will indeed spend the rest of the day proudly showing them to all his school. You can store your PlayStation or other iPhones, what really excites PJ are sneakers and his whole life revolves around what he wears on his feet. Besides, if you were wondering, his philosophy is very clear: shoes are made to be worn, regardless of their rarity or market value. It is above all a form of expression and a good way to socialize with others freakies who are able to recognize a pair at first glance. If you’re not part of this group, you probably won’t really grasp the importance of sneakers to PJ Tucker.
“Explaining my passion to someone who isn’t a sneakerhead himself would be like trying to explain to them something they can never understand. Each pair has its story and affects us differently. That’s what makes it magical. Sneakers are a way to change personality or to speak without saying a single word. »
With Pijay, we come close to the sacred when it comes to footwear. Imagine owning more than 1000 different pairs, with double, triple or even more models, all gathered in a large loft dedicated to their storage. Hello the puzzle to choose what to wear when leaving the casa early in the morning without arriving late for training. We are not even talking about trips over several days where he is absolutely obliged to prepare a travel bag usually used by an entire team, just to carry the pairs he planned to wear on and off the court for those few days. Of course, with a personal best of six different shoes worn in a single match, each meeting requires clever logistics. His ever-growing collection is even becoming a bit overwhelming for one man, he who has accumulated more than 5,000 sneakers through hours of research and purchases on eBay and in stores for 15 years. It’s simple, he touched more pairs than he scored points in the NBA in his 11-year career.
“It becomes difficult to wear them all. There are not enough days in the year for that. »
He is such an expert in his field that he even manages to surprise the players whose pumps he wears. One day in 2016, while playing with AJ5 Shawn Marion in Charlotte, a voice rose from the stands asking where he had found them. The question wouldn’t be so surprising if it weren’t for Michael Jordan himself, owner of the brand and very curious to know where he himself could obtain this precious model. Because that is where all the beauty of this passion lies: choosing the model that will hit the mark depending on the occasion. This is how, qualified to go to the Orlando bubble with the Rockets in the summer of 2020, he managed to have 91 pairs of sneakers sent to Mickey, not counting the twenty pairs purchased during this quarantine. forced. At one point, his hotel room was so full it looked more like a Nike storage shed, his loyal equipment supplier.
PJ Tucker still gonna be the sneaker MVP in the Bubble ????
????: PJ Tucker / IG pic.twitter.com/xOYylVwojP
-ABS-CBN Sports (@abscbnsports) July 15, 2020
But as we learn more and more about PJ Tucker’s passion for sneakers, one question burns our lips: how much does the interior release in its pumps each year? As we know, prices tend to skyrocket quickly, especially with the raffle system with drops in limited quantities. Especially since the current Heat player has repeated it enough, he wears everything he buys and therefore only looks for models in his size. While no overall figures are available to date to assess the complete collection of this compulsive buyer, we do not know, for example, that he dropped just over $200,000 for shoes during the 2017-18 season alone. . At the same time, with 106 different pairs worn in 99 games, in Houston that year, he had enough to heat up the blue card.
Among all the pairs he has worn on the court during his career, let us remember some of the most beautiful nuggets from the Air Jordan line, the Air Jordan 4. We saw him playing with the Travis Scott x Air Jordan 4 “Cactus Jack” in 2018, or more recently warming up with the Eminem x Carhartt x Air Jordan 4 last season. What’s more, he makes a point of owning all the AJ1s that exist on the market, and there are a lot of them. Also before the match, he knows how to attract camera lenses during the traditional arrival in the halls of the arena. In the last Playoffs alone, he notably stood out with the Dior x Air Jordan 1 High, the Nike Dunk Low “Kasina”, the Nike SB Dunk Low “Pigeon” or the Nike Air Force 1 Low “Questlove”.
In his spare time, finding sneakers is one of his main activities. PJ Tucker admitted that he spent more than 4 hours a day keeping himself informed of releases and shopping on the Web when he has a day off. During confinement, he even took the opportunity to open his own sneakers shop in Houston: The Better Generation. We are therefore talking about the passion of a lifetime and it deserves a few whims, especially with more than 50 million dollars in salaries amassed in his career according to Basketball Reference. So when the Nike Mag “Back To The Future” went up for sale, he didn’t hesitate to shell out $36,000 as part of a charity sale. But the supreme piece of his collection cost him almost… 8 times more. To celebrate his first championship title obtained with Milwaukee last summer, he had a “little” pleasure by offering himself a pair of Air Jordan 1s personalized by The Shoe Surgeon worth $250,000. The latter displays 2020 diamonds enclosed in 150g of white gold at the level of the Swoosh coupled with a small tab. This time no doubt, PJ Tucker is the sneaker king.
If you want to please him for his birthday on May 5th, it is therefore with a pair of sneakers in size 48.5 (or 14 for the US) that you will have to show up in front of PJ On the other hand, good luck for find a model that is not yet in his possession. Otherwise, you can always get an eyeful on her Instagram account while admiring worn models that you didn’t even know existed and that will turn the heads of all sneakerheads.
Sources texte : Complex, eBay, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Complex, Boardroom, Sneakernews, Basketball Reference
