After a terrible, terrible, regular season, Rasheed Wallace has played surprisingly well in the playoffs. In both the Cleveland and Orlando series, Rasheed has shown that he does have some worth. He’s played tough defense, given fouls, and even hit some timely threes. However, Rasheed did not play well at all on Monday night, going 2-7 from the field and missing all four of his threes. It could easily have just been a bad game, but maybe Rasheed’s shoes were to blame -- for the first time in a decade, Wallace was not wearing his trademark Air Force One sneakers, at least not for the first half of the game. I’ll let Ball Don’t Lie’s Trey Kerby take it from here:
“Instead of his trademark AF1s, Wallace started the game wearing a pair of white Nike Zoom Sharkalaids, a hybrid sneaker worn by the likes of Deron Williams and Rudy Gay this season. According to Sole Collector’s Nick DePaula, it was the first time in more than 10 years that Sheed had taken the court in anything but Nike’s first air-soled basketball shoe. Truly the end of an era, people.
Apparently confused by the extra strap and comfortable padding, Sheed changed out of his newfangled shoes and back into some all-white Air Force 1s for the second half of the game. Changing shoes mid-game is the new trend in Boston, I guess.”