When Kawhi Leonard became a sneaker free agent last year after his endorsement deal with Jordan Brand expired, he sat down and met with members of the New Balance Hoops team. Leonard had a lot of questions he wanted answered. While New Balance is established as a performance and lifestyle brand in other categories, they had not been in the basketball sneaker space since Los Angeles Lakers star James Worthy wore their shoes in the 1980s.

Patrick Cassidy, global digital brand marketing director of New Balance, was one of the people answering those questions. Having joined the company more than five years ago after previously being a co-founder of Dime Magazine, a basketball publication, Cassidy explained New Balance’s vision of re-entering the basketball space, a plan that had been in the works for more than three years.

During that time, the New Balance team had surveyed the market and came up with a long-term plan. Part of that plan was to align themselves with athletes that could tell a different story than the current narratives being pushed in the marketplace. The goal wasn’t to unseat Nike and Jordan Brand for the highest market share in the basketball sneaker space, it was to shift away from what everyone else was doing and create something that was sustainable over the long run.

“There’s a graveyard full of brands who have tried to do it the same way,” Cassidy said. “They get as many pairs [of shoes] out as possible, sign as many players as possible. It puts them in a short-sighted, no-win situation. The same brands enter basketball, disappear, enter, and come back. That’s not what we’re going to do. We don’t want to be the biggest. We want to be the best.”

Quality over quantity was a main talking point of New Balance’s strategy. Instead of signing as many athletes as possible, they narrowed the list down to a handful of players they thought would fit the brand’s basketball vision. New Balance started by signing Darius Bazley, a Princeton high school standout who decided to forego the collegiate process and skip an entire year of basketball to prepare for the 2019 NBA draft. As part of his endorsement deal, Bazley earned a $1 million internship at New Balance.

When Leonard became available in the market, Cassidy saw the opportunity to form a partnership with one of the players on his short list. He explained all of the above to the Toronto Raptors star. “He was engaged from our first conversation,” Cassidy said.

He had read all of the criticism about Leonard, his critics wondering whether his preference to retreat from the spotlight and stay away from social media would make him difficult to market, let alone be the face of a brand. Some saw Leonard’s personality as a detriment. Cassidy and New Balance disagreed.

“We were not going to make him something that he’s not,” Cassidy said. “It was important to drive home how different he is.”

In November 2018, New Balance announced their multi-year endorsement deal with Leonard. Several months later, at NBA All-Star weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina, New Balance released their first ad campaign involving Leonard.

In the ad, Leonard stands in a room with New Balance apparel as text appears on screen describing how different he is. References are made to his aversion to attention and how he doesn’t need the cameras.

At one point, Leonard’s famously large hands cover the camera lens to make the point apparent. “Kawhi doesn’t need to get your attention,” the ad says, as Leonard motions a finger to his mouth to shush everyone. “He already has it.” Over the 40 seconds, Leonard didn’t say a single word. The ad went viral on the Internet. Leonard debuted New Balance’s basketball shoe, the OMN1, at the All-Star Game that Sunday.

The most unlikely face of a basketball sneaker brand had found his home.

View photos Toronto Raptors superstar Kawhi Leonard and New Balance are a perfect match. (Ciaran Breen/Yahoo Sports Canada/Getty) More

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