How New Balance is building an NBA dynasty

There’s a subtle secret behind Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Darius Garland’s All-Star season.

According to Garland, his basketball shoes — a rotation of player-exclusive (PE) New Balance Hesi Low v2s — fit him unlike any other pairs he’s ever laced up. That’s because he had molds cast of his feet last summer to develop custom footwear to his exact specifications. It’s a process Garland had never undergone in his basketball career — until endorsing New Balance.

“It’s my first time with PEs like this,” Garland told Andscape earlier this season. “Honestly, the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever played in. They’re real snug on my feet, but feel perfect. Everything has been perfect with New Balance, actually.”

In late 2023, after spending his first four NBA seasons repping Nike, Garland signed a multiyear endorsement deal with the Boston-based company historically known for running shoes and culturally beloved for lifestyle footwear. Back in 2018, New Balance re-emerged in basketball, sparking a gradual trend of luring top-tier hoopers to join the brand’s resurgent vision.

“I was just tired of wearing the same shoes everybody else was wearing,” Garland said. “I wanted to be different and New Balance is something totally different in the basketball world.”

New Balance now has seven NBA endorsers — Garland, Zach LaVine, Tyrese Maxey, Dejounte Murray, Jamal Murray, Aaron Nesmith and Kawhi Leonard — forming a curated collective that rotates between four different performance models the brand offers in basketball. The featured silhouettes are Leonard’s signature shoe, the NB Kawhi 4, as well as the Hesi Low v2, TWO WXY v5 and the new Fresh Foam BB v3, which were unveiled in San Francisco during All-Star Weekend with the “A Different Bounce” collaboration designed by South Central Los Angeles-based streetwear brand, Bricks & Wood.

“New Balance is a trend-setting brand that players are finally starting to get hip to,” LaVine, the newly acquired Sacramento Kings guard, told Andscape. “We’ve got a pretty good group of NBA guys who I feel could compete against just about any brand.”

There’s also Cameron Brink, the second-year rising WNBA star of the Los Angeles Sparks who, in 2023, became the first woman to join New Balance’s basketball roster. And last year, the brand even landed Duke University freshman Cooper Flagg, the projected No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA draft, who grew up 25 miles from New Balance’s Skowhegan, Maine factory.

“We take an approach of ‘fewer, bigger, better’ with signing athletes,” Naveen Lokesh, New Balance’s global head of basketball marketing, told Andscape. “We aim to sign fewer partnerships, but market athletes in a bigger way, by telling better stories.”

The construction of New Balance’s basketball strategy begins with a universal pitch that can be summed up in one word — “family” — which arises unprompted amongst executives and players who’ve teamed up to help sell the brand’s hoops dream. While it’s an idea that’s strived for by just about every footwear brand, the family culture at New Balance seems to hit differently and more authentically.

“With any athlete signing, we want to make it clear: This will be a family-like partnership,” Lokesh said. “We are looking to partner with the best people, who also happen to be some of the best basketball players in the world.”

No member of the current New Balance hoops roster was alive when the brand selected its first basketball endorser over 40 years ago. And contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t Hall of Famer James Worthy.

In the early 1980s, the company signed Boston Celtics roleplayer M.L. Carr specifically to help inform the design and production of New Balance’s first-ever basketball shoe.

“[M.L.] Carr has been working with the company’s research and development team for two years trying to find a shoe that combined the attributes of the New Balance running shoe with the toughness and wearability needed for the high stress of a basketball shoe,” reads a July 1982 Bangor Daily News story, detailing Carr’s visit to the brand’s Skowhegan factory to witness the first-ever batch of New Balance basketball shoes come off the production line. 

By the end of 1982, around the time that the debut “New Balance Leather Basketball Shoe” hit retail,  Carr persuaded the company to sign Worthy, then an NBA rookie, who inked an eight-year, $1 million contract — the first-ever million-dollar shoe deal in basketball history. In 1986, the Los Angeles Lakers star received the New Balance “Worthy Express,” marking his and the brand’s first-ever signature basketball shoe.

Following Worthy, it would take New Balance more than two decades of trial and error to find its footing in basketball, its next deserving signature headliner and an entire team of endorsers.

The initial dominoes fell in late 2018, with two signings officially declaring the brand’s return to basketball.

First, New Balance pinpointed Darius Bazley, then an 18-year-old, five-star basketball recruit who decided to skip college and bypass the NBA’s G League to prepare for the draft. Negotiated by Rich Paul, CEO of Klutch Sports, the unprecedented agreement between New Balance and Bazley landed him a five-year, $1 million endorsement deal, which included a three-month internship with the brand. The news broke in The New York Times with the headline “The Million-Dollar Intern,” highlighted by the fact that no matter what, Bazley’s New Balance partnership guaranteed him $1 million — coincidentally, the same amount as Worthy’s historic signature shoe deal with the brand nearly four decades earlier.

Also in 2018, New Balance signed Leonard to a multiyear signature shoe deal. After spending his first seven seasons repping the Jordan Brand, Leonard turned down a five-year contract extension with the Nike subdivision, reported to be worth over $20 million but with no guarantee of a signature line, which New Balance committed to giving him as the face of the brand’s return in basketball. Lokesh, who was then employed by the NBA and working on the league’s global partnerships team, recalls taking notice of the footwear company’s early splash signings.

“I knew New Balance was going to be able to enter the sport in a unique and differentiated way based on the brand’s independent mindset,” said Lokesh, head of basketball marketing since 2022. “A focus on the best young athletes and basketball players was evident early.”

New Balance added Dejounte Murray in 2019, unconventionally signing the then-San Antonio Spurs point guard while he recovered from a torn ACL.

“When I got hurt, my agent [Rich Paul] actually told me [New Balance] really liked my story,” Murray told Andscape in 2020. “They really were fans of my basketball game and of me as a person. That was huge for me. It’s rare for a dude to get hurt and sneaker companies reach out right away.”

Murray helped headline the New Balance OMNIS, released in late 2019 as the brand’s first performance basketball sneaker in nearly a decade, which solidified its return to basketball. The point guard also became one of the first athletes to spotlight New Balance’s family culture, which would ultimately be key to expanding the brand’s roster of endorsers in hoops and across all sports.    

“As time went on, I was able to communicate with people who were part of the brand, and they just seemed like genuine people,” Murray said. “They seemed like a family. They had a plan. They always had a plan. And most of it was, ‘Be different.’ ”

Soon, Murray contributed to the expansion of New Balance Hoops’ roster by sharing his experience with LaVine, a fellow Seattle native whom he’s known since childhood. The two longtime friends linked after a game during the 2021-22 NBA season that LaVine spent as a sneaker free agent following the expiration of his previous four-year endorsement deal with Adidas in 2017.

“Dejounte came over after a game, and we were playing dominos. I told him, ‘We’re thinking about New Balance,’ ” recalled LaVine. “At the time, I hadn’t tried any of their shoes yet. So, he goes, ‘I have a pair in the car.’ Before he left, he gave them to me. They were a gray pair of his PEs. I wore them in practice the next couple of days, which almost became like my first wear test with the brand. New Balance had no idea. But Dejounte did a good job recruiting for them.”

In March 2022, LaVine officially signed with New Balance, marking the third footwear brand of his career. The two-time All-Star began his career with Nike before switching to Adidas and then reportedly turning down an aggressive signature shoe deal offer from Chinese brand Anta for the close-knit culture of New Balance. Ultimately, the conversation over dominoes that helped land LaVine with the brand inspired a colorway of the Fresh Foam BB model he headlines.

“It was the perfect match at the right time,” LaVine said. “New Balance was an established brand that was building, and I was an established player taking the next step in my career. New Balance has had a great approach in basketball, but I don’t think it’s an approach for everyone.

“If you’re looking for a brand that you can build with and feel supported in a family environment, I think that’s what New Balance offers — more exclusivity,” LaVine continued. “At some of the other brands, you’re one of many, which isn’t a bad thing either, and obviously some of the top brands have had success doing it. But I think New Balance has its own lane and is comfortable being in it.”

Like LaVine, Maxey vividly remembers the first time he took the court for a game in a pair of New Balances. It was the opening night of the 2022-23 NBA season.

“Our first game in Boston during my third season, I had a pair of grey New Balances on,” Maxey recalled to Andscape. “It was kind of cool because sitting on the sideline, I noticed I was the only guy on the court with New Balances on. Everybody else basically had on the same pair of shoes, either Kobes or GT Cuts. So, those moments made me feel like it was the start of something new.”

Though the Philadelphia 76ers guard didn’t officially sign with New Balance until January 2023, he cherishes the few months leading up to finalizing his deal, when he would look into the crowds of NBA arenas and see the friendly faces of brand executives watching him play.

“I had really good early conversations with the New Balance team, specifically around the topic of how involved the brand is with all of their partners,” Maxey recalled. “Then, they started coming to a bunch of my games, which really made me feel like I was a part of the family.” 

Maxey is one of three hoopers, along with Brink and Jamal Murray, featured in New Balance’s prolific “We Got Now” commercial, starring a dream team of brand athletes from U.S. Open tennis champion Coco Gauff to Major League Baseball MVP Shohei Ohtani to Olympic gold medalist Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Premier League star Bukayo Saka. There’s virtually zero chance you haven’t seen the 30-second spot, which, according to the TV measurement platform ispot.tv, amassed nearly 1.8 billion TV impressions from when it first aired last April to the end of 2024.

The commercial ends with Jamal Murray, who joined New Balance in 2021, swishing a jump shot as he says, “We Got Now,” the brand’s tagline, which feels like an intentionally declarative remix of the age-old hoops saying, “We got next.” Several years after not having a single endorser in the sport, New Balance now has a significant basketball presence for the first time.

Hoopers have skipped college, turned down signature shoe deals and even left the behemoth brands of Nike, Jordan and Adidas — all to take a chance on the building a family with New Balance.

“New Balance took a chance on me, honestly — the other way around,” Maxey told Andscape. “I was extremely happy that New Balance gave me the opportunity to be a part of this new group and era. So, I’m trying my best to rep the brand.”

For Garland’s first All-Star appearance since joining the brand, New Balance delivered the Cavs star point guard a special makeup of the shoes he’s found the perfect fit in this season.

Garland received a player-exclusive pair of Hesi Low v2s, made in the same bright-yellow “A Difference Bounce” colorway used by streetwear brand Bricks & Wood on the new Fresh Foam BB v3 model that New Balance unveiled during All-Star Weekend in San Francisco.

The 1-of-1 “A Different Bounce” Hesi Low v2s, which Garland rocked in both the 3-point contest and All-Star Game, add to his collection of PEs that came to life after he visited New Balance’s Boston offices last summer. Garland still spoke in awe while replaying the process of having his feet measured for the first time.

“At headquarters, New Balance takes a scan of your feet, and looks at all the different ways they move and how you could potentially hurt them, which is helpful for when they make your PEs,” Garland said. “Then, they make molds of your feet so all the shoes you wear are a perfect fit.”

New Balance also commemorated Garland’s milestone weekend and their partnership with a massive billboard erected in the heart of San Francisco, less than two miles from the Chase Center. The billboard featured his live-action portrait alongside an “NB” logo. During the weekend, the billboard received a visit from Garland, whose branding profile has reached new heights since he decided to go against the grain with New Balance.

“Being a part of a smaller group that has been able to ignite New Balance, especially in terms of cultural status, has been fun,” Garland said. “There weren’t a lot of guys wearing New Balance, and doing something different by pushing an up-and-coming brand, but I wanted to be a part of something new and fresh. It’s cool to push something different than what people and basketball culture are used to seeing.”

It’s been a long time coming for New Balance Hoops since re-emerging in 2018. Yet, its presence in basketball is no longer a question.

“I just want to keep seeing New Balance be the trend. Not just in the sport of basketball but in all aspects of footwear,” Maxey said. “In the past few years, I’ve seen more and more people wearing New Balance and that really makes me happy. A lot of people have fallen in love with this brand, and hopefully we can continue going onward and upward.”