In early August, Packer Shoes announced a limited offering of a special “Remember The Alamo” time capsule highlighting Shawn Kemp‘s trip to the Alamodome in San Antonio for the 1996 NBA All-Star Game. We spoke with owner Mike Packer about the Kamikaze II, and why it’s a unique taste of the 1990s basketball so many of us are nostalgic for all these years later.
The time capsule and re-release of the gear tells the story of Shawn Kemp’s visit to the Alamodome for the 1996 All-Star game. That game, and the weekend as a whole, can rightfully be called a collage of the very best ballers from the 90’s. Kemp also happened to rock the Kamikaze kicks for which he’s become almost as well known as his moniker, The Reign Man.
Featured in the special pack were a re-release of Kemp’s Rebook Classic Kamikaze II’s with the ’96 all-star game’s colorway. You’d also find a Mitchell & Ness 1996 Hardwood Classics Shawn Kemp jersey from the game, a Shawn Kemp 1996 ASG Caricature t-shirt (which is free in-store with a purchase of the Kamikaze II’s while supplies last), and a Mitchell & Ness “Remember the Alamo” Snapback.
While the entire package set is no longer an option, the limited release was a reminder of just how dope Reebok Classic re-releases have become. We chatted with Mike Packer about the project, his memories of Kemp from that heralded year, and what makes a significant colorway and re-release unique and creative enough to drive customer interest.
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Dime: So tell us how the whole thing came together?
Mike Packer: We have been fortunate enough to do a bunch of releases with Reebok in the past. So when the Kamikazes came out last year, it was a shoe that we were interested in doing stuff with years ago, and now we had a chance to do something with it. You always want to do something where, at least to us, doing something that sort of has a backstory that’s connected with the player, but at the same time, you can make it a good color and use materials that really stands alone. So that was the take; the All-Star Game take of the colorway of the shoe is what came first.
With all of that in motion, we started talking to Mitchell & Ness. It started with the hat, then it graduated to the t-shirt, and then it’s like, “Maybe we can do something to bring back the jersey.” The only time they’ve ever brought back that jersey before is when they brought it back with Jordan’s number on it a couple years back. So, it all just came together.
I think what got us going on it was that we saw that jerseys were having a little bit of a resurgence. We do business with Mitchell & Ness and you get to see things. If something is special enough, obviously people will buy it. But at the same time, I think it’s something where the timing all aligns with the time of year, colorways, and everything else that went into it that made for one nice little package to come out.
Dime: We were going to ask you about some of your favorite re-releases from Reebok over the last year, but what can you say about this particular colorway?
MP: It’s not something where we do shoes and we’re just putting a color on for no reason. It’s something, like I said, that has a backstory and history to it. The shoe itself being the canvas, you’re putting together something where it’s the right colors and the right materials. It’s not something that’s totally overbearing because if you look at that timeframe and look at that jersey, it’s a very flashy piece. And you want to take that and balance all that into a wearable shoe. Has it become a wearable shoe? Yeah, I think so. And I think it sort of bears it out with people wanting it.
As far as bringing back a shoe, if you’re going to tell a story, then you might as well do it right. And if you do it right, and you do it in the right materials, you do it in the right marketing strategy and distribution, you really can’t lose.
Dime: So it’s that story’s angle that you think is most important?
MP: Yeah. Like if you took a Kamikaze and just put blue patent leather on it for absolutely no reason, and just sorta put it out there, would it sell? Yeah, probably, because people want the shoe to a certain extent. But I think it’s really a balance that you have to have, of taking the shoe, thinking about it, doing it in a tasteful way where you’re putting something there together. It’s not just slapping colorways on there; it’s doing it with materials that maybe haven’t been thought of in the past. Putting a spin on a shoe which people can then appreciate. Can it get overdone? Yeah, it can get overdone. You take Shawn Kemp, throw him into Wikipedia, and you can come with up with 30 stories in a second and a half. But will all those stories translate on a shoe? Probably not.
Dime: Do you think the unique All-Star Weekend colors have helped the collaboration for this?
MP: For sure. I think that it’s something that’s inevitably an out-of-the-box thing. When it’s something that hasn’t been brought to market before, and it’s something that if you think about it—like the All-Star Game back then—the shoes that the players wore were just the one’s that were coming to market. If you take that group of players and that All-Star Game and you fast forward it to now, there’s no doubt in my mind that every one of them would have been wearing some type of player edition or some type of shoe that ties back to what the uniforms were and the shoe could look something like this.
Dime: A lot of people don’t necessarily remember Kemp’s performance in 1996 or what it was like to watch him going into San Antonio. Do you have any specific personal stories from that year of watching the game or anything like that?
MP: I mean, if you look at the time, if you look at who Reebok had in their stable of basketball athletes at that time, you had Iverson, Shaq, and Kemp. So you had that triangle of players. You had Iverson who was the speedy guard; you had Shaq who was the power at center at that time; and you had Kemp, who really was a combination of both. He had power, he had speed, and at that time, SportsCenter wasn’t what it is now. But Shawn Kemp every night was SportsCenter. He had the moves, he had the power, he had the speed, he was dunking on people. I mean, he was that guy.
And ’96 was really when Kemp was coming into his own. Like he had been in the league for a little bit, so he was that guy coming down on the wing, he could also take it in the post, he could handle the ball. He could do a lot of things with it, and that whole era. If you look at the players that were playing in that game, it was a whose who of players. And also at the same time, you look at some of the footwear that was in that game it’s a whose who of footwear, too.
Click page 3 for more pics of the Kamikaze II ’96 All-Star Game colorway.
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