Not a lot of people mess with And1 because they correlate it with it being sold at Wal-Mart. A lot of us old heads know that back in the day during the Mix Tape tour era that And 1 had a lot of good shoes. I believe that the Chosen One is probably the best performer in the entire And 1 line. For those of you that don’t know about the Chosen One, it was a shoe worn by former Defensive Player of the Year Ben Wallace.

Finding out that they had re-released these last year, I had to get myself a pair. Typical of the early and mid 2000s, this shoe is bulky but I was surprised at how light it was on my feet. Because they weren’t using textiles in the mid 2000s, the shoe is reinforced by leather and synthetics which makes for a pretty sturdy shoe with a lot of lockdown.

Because I’m a guard, my favorite part about the shoe is the traction. While not on SPO or GT Cut levels, the traction has great bite and I felt free to move on the court without having to worry about slipping. I’ve played in this shoe practically all last summer and only remember having to wipe my soles on very rare occasions.

The cushion feels pretty good and I felt very comfortable in these.

There was a time when these were being compared to the Jet Flights looks and performance-wise as they both had a midfoot strap.

Can’t say enough about this shoe. I love em and I’m definitely going to double up. I’ve got the blue pair but I’ll definitely get the red ones now that they’ve gone on sale.