Here at Sports Illustrated we have been celebrating the last decade of basketball this week. We have ranked all 10 finals, listed the best feuds, stories and, of course, honored the All-Decade teams. One aspect of the game that has evolved over the course of the last 10 years has been the rise of sneaker culture in the NBA.
Sneakers have been a part of the game since Chuck Taylor was a salesman. Michael Jordan’s rise as a global marketing star helped commercialize sneaker culture. In the 2010s, sneaker culture rose to new heights thanks to technology and social media.