Nike Kyrie Irving x Nick Kyrgios x Nike Air Zoom Vapor X 'Kyrie 5'
Colorway: White/Black-White-Hot Lava · Style code: BQ5952-100 · Release date: December 31, 2019 · Price: $395 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Nike NikeCourt Air Zoom Vapor x Kyrie 5 'NYC' (BQ5952-002) · Kyrie Irving x Nick Kyrgios x Nike Air Zoom Vapor X 'Clover' (BQ5952-101) · Nike Hyperdunk 2013 'Kyrie Irving' (599537-304) · Nike Hyperdunk 2014 'Kyrie Irving' PE (709907-001) · Nike Kyrie 6 'Asia Irving - Black' (CD5031-001)
The link between the two athletes is more than a shared passport. Kyrie Irving was born in Melbourne in March 1992 to American parents and holds both citizenships; Nick Kyrgios was born in Canberra in April 1995 and played basketball through his early teens, giving it up only at fourteen to commit to tennis. Putting a basketball signature model's details onto Kyrgios' court shoe was, in that sense, a fairly literal idea.
The base is the Air Zoom Vapor X, the hard-court model Kyrgios played in. What carries over from the Kyrie 5 is the shaped overlay that wraps the midfoot (the piece Nike built around the trapping motion of a Venus flytrap), reworked here to do the same lockdown job on a tennis last. The heel is finished in Hot Lava and carries the eye graphic drawn from Irving's Hamsa tattoo, the same symbol that runs through his own signature line.
It sold at $160 in 2019. Crossover projects between Nike's court categories are usually cosmetic; this one at least borrowed a structural piece rather than only a color scheme.