P.J. Tucker is the NBA’s king of rare sneakers, because while many have great collections few are as willing to put them to the test as Tucker on the NBA court.
The Rockets forward will wear the rarest of rare Jordans and Nikes in NBA action, even if sometimes that results in the shoe falling apart on him — the cost of doing business with sneakers that are sometimes old. However, in Houston, Tucker has some competition when it comes to the Jordans portion of the sneaker game, as Chris Paul, long a Jordan athlete, is now with the Rockets.
Tucker dropped by Complex’s Sneaker Shopping with Joe La Puma for this week’s episode to talk about his sneaker collection, some of his favorites he’s played in and also buy $16,000 in sneakers at Flight Club. Among the stories he told were the time Michael Jordan asked him where he got a pair of rare Jordans and how Chris Paul flexed incredibly hard on him this year by copping the $50,000 Derek Jeter Jordan 11s immediately after Tucker showed them to him on his phone (3:56 mark of the below video).
PJ: Chris Paul’s my teammate. Good friend, been knowing him since we were kids. One of the best Jordan collections walking on this Earth. He didn’t have ’em. I showed him a picture, we were in the locker room, I showed him a picture. CP, I lie to you not, he looks at them and he goes, those are crazy. I said, yeah those are crazy. I showed him how much they were. One week flat, he walks in with them on his feet. Stops, looks at me, smiles and keeps walking.
JLP: Damn, he should’ve gotten you a pair!
PJ: I know! That’s super selfish, man. I put you on!
The game is the game, but that’s pretty cold. Chris Paul has his own signature sneaker line with Jordan so we rarely see him don a pair of retro Jordans, but know that if he wanted to he could probably put the whole league to shame. Knowing how Jordan Brand athletes tend to get laced with rare pairs and one of a kind PEs, as Jeff Green told us about, you can bet Paul has some crazy sneakers in his collection very few if anyone has. He can just thank Tucker for introducing him to the Jeters.
