ÿþAround this time last year, we were getting nike air presto black ready for the launch of the Nike KD 6. What s weird about that is around this time last year, it was June. For all intents and purposes, the KD 6 was cutting off the Nike Zoom KD 5  a shoe that dropped seven months prior  right when it was probably just hitting its stride and awareness with the general public. Criticism of the KD 5 aside  many called it a glorified Hyperdunk  this was a brand new strategy by Nike Basketball. They weren t kidding when they said #SummerIsSerious.

It was part of Nike Basketball s big gamble: to make the game a year-round event. No longer was nike air presto ultra flyknit the swoosh content to have our attention and our wallets for nine months out of the year. They realized that rolling out one of their Big 3 during the summertime was a great way to keep the audience engaged and paying attention to the brand. Last summer was dominated by summer leagues and exhibition games that were sponsored by the swoosh, continuing a trend that started during the 2011 NBA lockout.

But none of this would have been worthwhile for Nike if they were just trying to sell Hyperfuses. They had to unveil signature product during this time and Durant was the perfect fit. In fact, Nike should be thanking Kevin Durant every day that he is the basketball junkie that he is because there s no way in hell Nike was ever going to convince old man Kobe to play in every summer league or tell a nike air huarache cheap weary LeBron James to cut his championship celebrations short to come to L.A.

So the Nike KD 6 was everywhere during the summer. It got a spotlight on it that lasted longer than any other signature shoe this past season and unlike Kobe or LeBron, KD actually wore his signature shoes. You saw him wear new colorways that were not even leaking to the internet. It was a great strategy by Nike and surely got more people talking about it than if they had just released around the same time that nike air huarache sale the Nike LeBron 11 or Nike Kobe 9 had launched.