Every signature shoe has to cater to the specific needs of the signature athlete who’ll be wearing it. Aesthetics aside, what were you prioritizing in terms of performance?
I’m somebody who plays extremely fast on the court. I do a lot of cuts and I move around a lot. I basically told them, “Listen, as long as I have really good grip and ankle support, I’ll be good.” I move differently than a lot of athletes, so we really honed in on making sure the shoe would support that. I’ve felt pretty good playing in the New Balance shoes they’ve had me wear in the past and I know they were monitoring how those affected my play and developed my signature shoe from there. So I really appreciated that attention to detail. It definitely helped us nail the one big performance thing I wanted to get right.
If you went back ten years and told young Tyrese that New Balance would be one of the most exciting brands in sneakers and that he’d be thrilled to be signed to them—
I mean, go back six years honestly. I didn’t expect that. My uncle was one of the first people I knew that was really on it. Shoutout to him. He was trying to get me to start wearing [New Balance], and then I started to notice that like, everything he was wearing? I wanted it. I feel blessed to be a part of it. When I first came to Philly they were everywhere, and then I went home to Dallas and noticed everybody wearing them there after a while. I come to LA to work out in the summer and lately it’s like everyone’s been wearing New Balance. It’s been crazy to see the rise, I’m just blessed to be a part of it.
You’re way more excited about your sneaker sponsor than most athletes these days.
Bro I want to be here, I’ll promote New Balance every day. I tell everybody they gotta be wearing New Balance.
New Balance’s lineup of collaborators runs pretty deep these days. Is there a particular name you really want to work with now that you’re a signature athlete?
Man, Joe Freshgood’s stuff is really good, the Miu Miu stuff has been really good. I could go on. They’re doing great stuff.
Vibe-wise, what do you hope your shoe captures about you and makes people feel when they put on a pair?
You know the way Anthony Edwards’ shoe captures his personality? I want that. When people put my shoe on, I want them to be joyful. I want them to be happy. I want them to be thankful. I hope it makes them want to work even harder, maybe not just to get their own shoe one day but just to go as far as they can in life in general. That’s all I want.
You’re often described as a guy who plays with joy. You’ve now been with the Sixers long enough to have seen a few different versions of this team. With where you are in your career now, what does your energy and influence bring to the locker room?
It brings a lot. Joel and I, because we’re now six years into a friendship and relationship on the court, I’ve seen him go through a lot of different partnerships and phases. Right now I think is the most he’s been involved in team stuff. He always wants to be involved, to be a part of what’s going on with the team. I think that’s just from the joys I’ve tried to bring him. I think I’ve done a really good job of trying to push that upon him. It’s made everybody as a whole happier. You can see it with the entire team. We like being with each other every single day, and that’s actually really hard to come by. When we get on the court I feel like we have each other’s backs no matter what. If it’s good, bad, ugly, I know my team has my back and I always have theirs.
