Saturday the Cleveland Cavaliers and his Oklahoma City locked horns in a nationally televised contest, Paul George debuted his upcoming signature shoe, the PG2.
The launch colorway pays tribute to George’s love of video games, particularly one of a certain console from Sony. Asked of the origin of his love of games, George revealed this:
I just had a knack for video games. As soon as I discovered PlayStation, I was throwing hints here and there to my dad — cutting out the clipping of a video game, cutting out the clippings of the PlayStation, leaving it on his dresser. I remember on Christmas morning, I unwrapped my gift and sure enough, it was the PS2. I’ve been a PlayStation guy ever since.”
To that end, the she’s has several PlayStation-specific nods, one of which is a light-up tongue. Designer of the PG2 Tony Hardman had this to say about working with Sony:
We worked directly with the PlayStation team on every aspect of this shoe. One thing that they provided, which was really cool, was the starry graphic from the dynamic theme that will be available for your PlayStation 4 with a code from the shoe. It’s a beautiful graphic, so we made it the sock liner.
The PG2 has moved away from the inner bootie construction of its predecessor in favor of a more traditional tongue construction. The prominent forefoot strap is also no more , but to retain, and even exceed, the high level of fit of the PG1, designer Hardman developed what he calls dynamic wings at the forefoot. Which as Hardman explains, “eliminates some of the issues we had where the strap might be too long for narrow feet.”
Another improvement from the PG1 to the PG2 was enlarging the forefoot Zoom Air unit. Hardman elaborates:
“We increased the size of the forefoot Zoom Air unit to 10 millimeters. And, he’s standing right on top of it now, whereas in the PG1 there was a little bit of foam between the unit and the foot. So all the way to the ground he’s got that full Zoom Bag and that really gives him propulsion in the forefoot,
The limited edition PG2 “PlayStation” colorway will be available February 10.
