Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Drew His Next Nike Himself: ‘Sick Design. Because I Drew It.’

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t saying much about his next signature shoe, except who designed it. Asked by TIME what to expect from the Nike Shai 002, the two-time MVP kept it short: “Sick design. Because I drew it. That’s all I can give you.”

The line comes from TIME’s new profile of the Oklahoma City Thunder star, published Thursday (Oct. 8). He moved from Converse, a Nike subsidiary, to Nike itself in June, and Nike plans to release the Shai 002 early next year. Drawing is one of his hobbies, along with tennis. He sketched early versions of the Shai 001 as well, Hypebeast notes, but the 002 is his first shoe designed from scratch under Nike Basketball.

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It fits the player. Gilgeous-Alexander beat Timothée Chalamet and A$AP Rocky to GQ’s Most Stylish Man of 2022, has walked a Paris Fashion Week runway and shows up to arenas in all-leather outfits and oversize fur, TIME notes. He talks about clothes the way designers do. “It’s fun to be able to play with color palettes,” he told the magazine. “I’ve always been into arts and crafts, and it’s a way to do it through clothes.”

He gave a preview of the Nike era at the Thunder’s media day last month. Instead of either signature model, he wore an unreleased all-orange Virgil Abloh Archive x Nike Air Force 1 Low, built on the design language of Abloh’s Off-White collaborations and matched to the Thunder’s uniform, Hypebeast reported. It’s unclear whether the pair will ever be released.

Booker brought an artist, Flagg brought Maine

He isn’t the only star treating his shoes like a canvas. At the Phoenix Suns’ media day, Devin Booker debuted the Futura x Nike Book 2, covered in colorful, atom-like abstract graphics by the New York graffiti artist Futura, with “BOOK” written across the tongue in Futura’s handwriting. The artwork was made for Booker and grew out of a friendship the two have built over the years, per Hypebeast. He wore it with his new No. 15 jersey.

Cooper Flagg went home for inspiration. New Balance unveiled the Dallas Mavericks star’s signature logo at the NBA China store in Macao, where Dallas is playing the 2026 NBA China Games, and it hides pine-tree cutouts in the monogram. “The logo design represents me,” said Flagg, the No. 1 pick in 2025, now in his second season, via Hypebeast. “Where I’m from, there are a lot of trees, so you’ll see the pine tree cutouts on the side as a reminder of staying true to who I am and where I grew up.”

Gilgeous-Alexander’s season starts Oct. 20, when the Thunder open against the San Antonio Spurs, the team that knocked them out of the Western Conference finals in May. The shoe he drew follows early next year.