NEW YORK — The Nike Hyperdunk is a player’s shoe. It’s never had the casual-wear aesthetics or name-recognition of Nike’s signature shoes, built around superstars such as Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.

Yet the Hyperdunk 2017, which hits the market Thursday morning, has become the test kitchen for Nike’s latest innovation: React foam, a lighter, springier and more durable padding that more than 50 NBA players will have on their feet next season. In choosing Hyperdunk (and the Jordan Brand Super.Fly 2017), Nike is making sure basketball fans — and players at all levels — take notice, starting with debuting the shoes and technology in the NBA Finals.

“There’s a reason the basketball team chose (Golden State Warriors forward) Draymond Green as their muse,” Nike React lead designer Ernest Kim said. “They wanted something that could work for that utility, does-a-little-bit-of-everything type of athlete, and he’s a great representation of that.

“Also, he’ll tell you exactly what he thinks, which is really helpful when you’re making a product.”

React foam is going public after many months and 2,000 hours of wear-testing. The 2016 version of the Hyperdunk featured an entirely different look and feel, including a large airbag on the outsole and a FlyKnit sock instead of a tongue. In interviews with For The Win, the shoe and foam’s creators opened up a window into how Nike implements sneaker technology without alienating consumers and athletes at all levels.

“We let the style of our innovation create the style of what’s happening off the court,” Nike senior design director Kevin Dodson said. “So we’re so focused on what we do from a performance lens. We’re talking about simplicity and the fact that it’s a basketball shoe. There’s nothing we’re hiding about that. We want people know this is the most innovative product in basketball today.”

Its creators say React is the best foam Nike has made yet. But it comes in a year when Nike’s also released Vapormax and ZoomX, two other supposed breakthroughs in footwear cushioning. These kinds of developments don’t come along every year, so releasing three at once is unusual.

But Nike’s plan centers on respecting individual preference — Kevin Durant, for example, prefers air-based cushioning — while keeping up with competitors such as Under Armour and Adidas.

“One thing we are seeing is that there is a greater appetite for innovation at a more rapid pace,” Kim said. “I think people are experiencing these things in other facets of their lives, like their phones or cars, like autonomous driving. There’s an increased appetite around innovation.”

Hyperdunk was always going to be the first run for React foam, Dodson said. It fit with the line’s performance-over-everything philosophy and the goal of outfitting as many NBA players as Hyperdunks typically do, including diverse stars such as Kevin Love, Marc Gasol, Bradley Beal, C.J. McCollum and Green.

But while the Hyperdunk 2017 comes across as a piece of technology for the foot, the Super.Fly 2017 — which is only worn in the NBA by Blake Griffin — carries some older tradition. The suede upper is quite a bit heavier than FlyKnit, and the ankle support of the padding is more noticeable. The design (which is sleek for a “Team Jordan” model) and heft echo those older shoes, even as the padding in the midsole is brand new.

“We look at it as an opportunity,” Jordan Brand vice president David Creech said. “If you really think about it, some of the most iconic Jordan shoes were iconic because of the technology: the air pill, the cup sole. So we went back and said, ‘OK, we’re going to take React and design it in a way that is distinctly Jordan.’ ”

No amount of technology in new shoes is going to cause people to stop buying vintage Jordans. Nike’s back catalog is one of its greatest assets, something a newer company like Under Armour can’t even pretend to match, as high-caliber as its current lines are.

Kim’s a tech guy, though. He admitted that with the basketball shoes he was making when he joined Nike eight years ago, “it’s almost like you can’t even recognize that as being a basketball shoe if you compare it to the shoes of today.” Yet he wore Air Force 1s — in FlyKnit.

“We don’t want to tell people what they should be wearing,” he said. “We want to be able to deliver styles and performance that people are going to prefer.”

The React foam won’t be for everyone. The bouncy responsiveness takes some getting used to, and the multifaceted outsole almost seems to grab the floor. This might not be the ideal shoe for a speedster — though few point guards typically wear Hyperdunks. Yet those same facets make it easier to change directions and land comfortably.

That goes back to preference and the goal of finding the right fit. “As soon as I put my foot in it,” Green said, “I was like, ‘Ahh, man.’ ”