words // Brandon Richard

After emerging as a player to keep an eye on in our Sole Watch features last season, Chicago Bulls guard Jimmy Butler kicked off the new season by making a big sneaker statement last night in Miami.

We instantly took notice of Butler's all-red Crazy 8, a model he frequently laced up during his sophomore campaign in the Windy City. It turns out that the shoe was the creation of JP Custom Kicks, who gave us all the details on the project.

The red-based Crazy 8s were given the name of '281,' inspired by Butler's @mr_2eight1 Twitter handle and the area code of his hometown Tomball, Texas. JP used the Red/Black-White colorway as the base shoe, following Butler's instructions to simply "do something creative."

Influenced by Chicago's classic color palette, the 'Red October' Air Yeezy 2 and 'Legends of the Summer' Jordans, JP took apart and reconstructed most of the shoe using authentic python and stingray skins. Herby Santana (@HerbJuice) created the Bulls logo patches that adorn the heels.

What do you think of the '281' Crazy 8 custom that Butler wore in the opener? You can keep up with all JP projects by visiting jpcustomkicks.com and following @JPCustomKicks on Twitter and Instagram.

images via @5k5photography