Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Anthony Edwards Jab With Shoe Marketing

Shoes are deeply rooted in basketball culture. NBA stars have long donned signature shoes as a way to market themselves, their brand, connect with fans and influence society. The footwear companies become rivals, everyone seeking to win the biggest market share of basketball fans – all of whom wear shoes.

The next group of superstars have arrived in the NBA, with two of them meeting in last year's Western Conference Finals. When the Minnesota Timberwolves were ousted by the Oklahoma City Thunder last May, the biggest topic of conversation was centered around the leader's of each club in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Anthony Edwards.

Last season, Gilgeous-Alexander released his first ever signature shoe, along the way dropping new colorways for each playoff series win of the Thunder's title journey. A risky roll out from Converse that could've been spoiled if OKC didn't hoist the Larry O'Brien trophy turns into one of the biggest payoffs in decades from a marketing standpoint.

After each round the Thunder won people wondered what was next for the SHAI 001 colorways. The following round seeing Gilgeous-Alexander sport them on the court. As these shoes were made available to the public this fall, each version sold out in minutes as the reigning MVP becomes a household name in the NBA.

Following that Western Conference Finals win over Adidas athlete Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves, Converse immediately released a video for the Hail Clay color ways seeing the SHAI 001 sneaker squashing an Ant, a nod to Edwards' Ant man nickname.

The video displayed "Nothing Left 2 say? Unbelievable." to which Edwards responded this offseason in a video with Complex Sports saying "If they doing something to say something about me, when I didn't say nothing about them? That means we doing something right. If you still worried about me, that means we doing something right. We don't feel no type of way about it, we love it. We gonna have something back, we gonna come back, don't worry about it."