Kyrie Irving and Nike have spent the last few years putting out consistently popular sneakers. While the base design on the Brooklyn Nets’ new point guard’s shoes are always solid, part of the reason Irving’s kicks are so great stem from the fact that they manage to have unique and fun colorways.
The latest example of this drops on Saturday morning, when Nike will release the Kyrie x SpongeBob SquarePants collection. The mix of 5s and Low 2s have had some pretty interesting concepts, but none have been quite as ambitious as the upcoming line inspired by five residents of Bikini Bottom. SpongeBob, of course, has his own colorway, as will Patrick Star, Squidward Tenticles, Sandy Cheeks, and Mr. Eugene Krabs. The first three sneakers are all Kyrie 5s, while the latter two are Kyrie Low 2s.
All five of the kicks are great, but we wanted to determine which colorway is the best. As is always the case when something as subjective as shoe rankings hit the internet, these are 100 percent correct and accurate.
5. Mr. Krabs
These are a lot. They’re super good, don’t get me wrong, but the deep red base with the gold swoosh and the green/blue accents are quite bold. Working in its favor in a big, big way are that these may have the best little details of any of the five, both because of the dollars along the top of the shoe and the fact that Plankton is splattered on the inner panel. It does not get much better than that, and if you can pull these off, you are way cooler than I am.
4. SpongeBob
The best thing about these is how literally any human who is even tangentially aware of what SpongeBob is can look at them and know exactly what they are. You don’t get this with every colorway of a sneaker that is inspired by something outside of the world of basketball, but these manage to accomplish that. They’re pretty simple and don’t have any out of this world minor details — although the fry cook hat on the inside of the tongue and the squiggly swoosh are great — but they accomplish what they set out to do perfectly.
3. Sandy
The cleanest sneaker of the bunch by a country mile. White kicks can sometimes be a bit boring, but these are very good, in part because the Sandy-specific details — the flower on the outer panel and the acorn on the back — are super unique. This was, also, the most controversial ranking among the Uproxx Sports staff, because once the list was unveiled to everyone, one person immediately said it was the worst one, with the two next responses saying they were the best. Let’s split the difference and move on.
2. Squidward
I’m a sucker for anything that balances shades of blue and purple well, and these manage to do that perfectly. It is extremely unusual in the world of SpongeBob for good things to be associated with Squidward, but like the song “Sweet Victory,” the good things associated with him are fantastic, and these are no exception. You may respond to this by correctly saying Squidward had next to nothing to do with the decision to compose and perform “Sweet Victory,” to which I say please stop pointing out the holes in my argument, the sneakers are good.
1. Patrick
Man, these are perfect. It would be really easy to mess up a pink sneaker with a yellow-green base, but these got knocked out of the park. The bubbles all over the shoes are a really nice touch, and if you look closely enough, you can see the tongue has a board with a nail in it on the inside, which is an excellent allusion to the show. Congratulations to Patrick, because like Smitty WerbenJagerManJensen, he is No. 1.
