Since Fear of God founder and designer Jerry Lorenzo announced the Fear of God Athletics partnership with Adidas in 2020, loyalists of each brands have been patiently waiting to see their promise.will revolutionize the competitive basketball industry eternally” will come to life. Three years passed before the first styles with three stripes appeared. While the shoe fell short of performance expectations, many colorways sold out online or fetched mortgage-paying prices on the resale market, signaling that some of Fear of God’s core fan base outside of basketball appreciated the shoe to a point. But with Lorenzo AND Thanks to Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden the tension and drastic changes which have occurred since the alliance began, many are waiting to see how each of them will prove.

“There’s a higher level of attributes that a performance shoe has to have,” Lorenzo said of the lesson learned from the Fear of God Athletics One, or FOG I. “There’s a lot of things in fashion that you can get away from because that’s what fashion is. For performance, you can’t turn it off because you can’t perform. So trying to translate a certain aesthetic into something that does what it’s intended to do is a very difficult thing.”

After a yr and a half of difficult conversations, Lorenzo and the Adidas design team imagine they’ve hit the perfect balance between style and functionality with the latest Fear of God Athletics II basketball shoe that they missed the first time around.

“Jerry clearly comes from a much more luxurious background, focusing on silhouette, material and shape,” said Adidas senior design director Shane Ward. In collaboration with Adidas, he developed shoes for former NFL players Keyshawn Johnson and Eddie George. “We come from an athlete-centric environment focused solely on performance testing. I think a lot of it was just patience, listening and understanding on both sides, which ultimately resulted in trust.”

Lorenzo’s design aesthetic was evident in the FOG I. On each the FOGA II Lo and Hi models, the shape still remained, but gone were useful features similar to the thermoplastic polyurethane film overlay, ankle bands and lace-up stoppers. Focused on the essentials, the FOG II is built around a fitted unibody sock with a breathable neoprene collar for comfort and a lacing system attached to the outer shell for security during lateral movements. The contoured midsole still features the translucent rubber that Fear of God is thought for, while the medial side is split with Lightstrike foam to provide greater flexibility and make it lighter.

The outsole features Fear of God Athletics’ latest proprietary “adaptive sole” consisting of a wavy toe pattern that concurrently provides traction and reduces weight. Like its predecessor, the upper of the II Basketball model draws inspiration from classic versions Adidas Predator football shoes. Except here, the molded cage has been replaced with lightweight microsuede, and the “three stripes” have been cut out to reveal a ventilated mesh base. In the case of the II Basketball Hi, the straps are designed based on the ankle braces worn on the court by players similar to former Adidas and NBA player Derrick Rose.

“These are feats of engineering that we had to have difficult discussions about because there may have been one ambition at the beginning, but we had to execute it in a way that the athletes believed in it,” Ward said, adding that the II Basketball Hi straps provide a more comfortable fit than traditional high-top basketball shoes. “By talking to athletes and giving Jerry key information, we were able to reach places like this that we couldn’t land before.”

“I wish the toeboxes weren’t so round,” Lorenzo said, noting that he also had to compromise on the internal cushioning support around the ankles, calling them “thick.”

“I pushed it as far as I could. This is the shape I try to design around. When you see this silhouette from a distance, do you know it is the Fear of God? This was the hardest thing. Really put it through a performance lens and without compromise.”

II Basketball has already surpassed the first version on the court. When Fear of God Athletics One Model was released in December 2023, it made its debut in Indiana and the University of Miami. However, the shoes received a lukewarm response as many players selected not to wear them, and so they ultimately never made it to the NBA.

A yr later, Los Angeles Lakers guard Gabe Vincent has already worn various FOG II colours in multiple games this season. The shoes were also worn twice in the same game on November 10, when Toronto Raptors guard Jamal Shead wore them against the Lakers.

“The first night Gabe was in it, it was fun and exciting, but the most important thing for me was whether he would be in it again,” Lorenzo said. “That was the greatest gift that was given back to me because it was actually that performance that I didn’t really prove.”

Redemption also comes in the form of a partnership with Atlanta’s next-gen basketball league, Overtime Elite. On November 7, Adidas and Fear of God Athletics announced that Fear of God would be represented as the eighth team in the league. The partnership was introduced during a press conference and panel led by former NBA player Matt Barnes at the Overtime Elite Arena, where the players and coach Cilk McSweeney were introduced via a video montage in which they introduced their lines as the opening lines of Tupac Shakur’s “Pain.” played.

Team Athletics will compete against other players aged 16-20 with skilled ambitions. With its own squad, Fear of God Athletics will equip players and coaches with shoes, uniforms, warm-up uniforms and other equipment for the 2024-25 season. Featuring players from Florida basketball powerhouse Calvary Christian Academy, the Fear of God team is as unlikely because it sounds. According to Lorenzo, he was already in talks to work with Overtime Elite when a mutual friend told him that McSweeney’s team would be joining him.

“When we found out that there was an opportunity to collaborate and that we were a team, I said we 100% had to make it happen,” Lorenzo said. He learned about Overtime Elite’s involvement from his teenage son, who religiously watches the games. “It was a divine thing that brought us here.”

“These days (people) talk more about high school and college basketball than they do about college or the NBA,” said former NBA player Damien Wilkins, head of basketball at Overtime Elite. His responsibilities include increasing visibility by connecting the league and its players with brands. Last season, Overtime Elite had the same arrangement with Rolling Loud hip-hop festival brand.

“Linking up with (Fear of God) gives us more exposure to our league and for them it’s a common thing… All our guys wear this stuff anyway, so it made sense.”

Team Athletics’ debut at the OTE Arena on November 8 against consecutive champions City Reapers felt like an official introduction. As players and coaches emerged from the locker room and formed their warm-up positions, the eyes of opposing fans and players alike widened with curiosity and envy as the team took the court wearing latest II Basketball sneakers and matching uniforms.

“You guys look tough,” a child sitting next to the bench was heard saying.

Thanks to Fear of God’s well-known design language, the band immediately stands out from other Overtime Elite bands that either have more colourful decorations or no fashion accents in any respect, something Fear of God has already noticed on social media.

Fortunately, Team Athletics plays in addition to it looks. As seniors, they defeated the Reapers 97-90 4-star recruit Shon Abaevwho enrolled at the University of Cincinnati on November 28, scored 37 points. And as for the shoe? The same kid who complimented the team before the game began stood in the same spot after the game and asked the players if he could take their shoes. He left empty-handed.

“They did the best they could with the shoe, it feels great,” said Abaev, who swapped out the textured laces for his own turquoise ones. “It may look heavy, but it’s not. You can move around in it. I’m a setter and I cut out a lot. It holds up really well. I was surprised.”

With basketball shoes, especially Adidas models like Minnesota Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards signature shoes, becoming popular off the court again, the FOGA II has the potential to develop into a shoe that Lorenzo described as “something you may exit with and (rating) 50 points.” come in and likewise exit on the weekend with.”

“I really wanted to create something that would make me feel like I opened a pair of Jordans in ’91, ’92,” Lorenzo said. Before joining Adidas, he created Fear of God basketball shoes with rival brand Nike in 2018. “I really felt like footwear had to come back to that at some point.”

“The obsession with design was much greater back then,” Ward said, mentioning names similar to design legends Tinker Hatfield, Steve Smith and his longtime mentor, Peter Moore. In recent years, he said, many brands and designers have begun to focus unequally on technology and performance. “After a while, you start to forget about what is happening outside the court and in the culture.”

But don’t be fooled. Lorenzo still wants it to be known that basketball is to be played in the second league.

“I created enough shoes for people to wear all over the world. I can do it with my eyes closed,” he said. “But I really wanted to create something that did what it was intended to do, which was let you be part of the fun.”

He paused, “This is (God’s) (remove quote) third quote, basketball shoe, but I’d really like to call it our first.”