Dennis Schröder couldn’t resist. He had to go back.



Scattered in front of his locker in Los Angeles were a pair of gold flecked Nike Zoom KD 12s. Kevin Durant’s signature shoe was released in April, but took a little longer to make their way to the Thunder locker room.



You see, Schröder has been having something of a shoe conflict. Growing up in Braunschweig, Germany, Schröder played soccer. So, when he made the switch to basketball as a teenager, he wanted something similar to a soccer boot – stylish, European, and most important, low cut.



It’s why in his first season with the Thunder in 2018, Schröder laced up a shoe that was five years old … and why he got shit for it wherever he went.



Look across professional sports and you can see the influence soccer boots have had on football and basketball. The high tops-or-bust athletic shoe mentality is dead, and soccer helped kill it. The popularity of...