2001 Reebok Answer 4

by Brandon Richard

To fully grasp the significance of Allen Iverson’s Reebok Answer IV, context matters. Perhaps as much as it does for any other sneaker ever produced. It’s not a shoe that transcended its time because of a futuristic design or catchy slogans. It matters today because Iverson wore the shoe during a moment many describe as the very peak of his Hall of Fame career, a moment that stands as one of the greatest underdog stories in NBA history. Before diving into the shoe itself—a model best known for its zip-up upper and on-court moments—the stage must be set to explain why it resonates with so many people.

Some say championships define legacies in sports, and, for the most part, they’re correct. Beyond championships, MVP awards, retired jerseys, Hall of Fame inductions, and impact on culture have a unique way of separating legendary athletes from true icons. Iverson never won an NBA championship. His Georgetown teams never advanced past the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament, and his version of Team USA famously stumbled into a bronze medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics. But nobody would dare say that he’s not a champion—particularly a champion of the culture. Street culture. Hip-hop culture. His culture.

At the time, Iverson embodied everything hip-hop had become, style-wise. Fur coats, throwback jerseys, oversize jeans, fitted hats, durags, and diamond chains in the tunnel. Cornrows, head-to-toe tattoos, and accessories like his famous shooting sleeve were front and center on the court. In fact, he even dabbled in music himself, releasing the controversial and profanity-laden single “40 Bars” under the moniker Jewels. Iverson wasn’t the first NBA player to represent hip-hop culture in the league, but he was the first whose appearance was an in-your-face reminder of the lifestyle he was about.

What he was about didn’t appeal to everyone, particularly out-of-touch critics threatened by his refusal to conform to the false social standards imposed on athletes, especially athletes of his background. He never claimed perfection—in fact, his willingness to be openly flawed was part of his charm. Iverson never wavered. He stayed true to who he was and where he was from, despite constant pressure to change. He was unapologetically himself.

The best way to shut your critics up is to be the best at what you do, and, in 2000–01, Iverson was the world’s best basketball player. He dominated the season, claiming All-Star MVP; his second scoring and steals titles; nabbed First Team All NBA honors; and was named the league’s Most Valuable Player. Most important, he led the Philadelphia 76ers through a grueling playoff run to reach the NBA Finals, setting the stage for a showdown against the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers.

While led by the superstar tandem of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, the Lakers turned to little-known reserve guard Tyronn Lue as their surprise weapon for the Finals. Lue was tasked with imitating Iverson’s style of play during practice and guarding him in the series, despite having only played sixty-one games total through his first three seasons. The Lue-Iverson matchup would lead to a moment that would go on to largely define both players’ careers.

With the Sixers leading by two, and with less than a minute to play in overtime of Game 1 of the Finals, Iverson had the ball and an opportunity to give his team some much-needed extra cushioning. Hounded by his unlikely nemesis, Iverson sized Lue up and hit him with the essential AI package: jab step, crossover, and a sixteen-foot fadeaway over his outstretched arms. The ball found the bottom of the net without making contact with the rim. As the shot went through, Lue lost his footing and fell to the ground. What happened next has become one of the most iconic moments in the sport’s history: Iverson stepped over Lue, his eyes staring him down. It was a message. Ruthless. Calculated. The Lakers went on to win the Championship, but the series would be remembered for Iverson’s game-clincher and stepover in Game 1 and, of course, the Answer IV—the sneaker he wore.

As Iverson faced growing scrutiny over his persona, the Answer IV was almost Reebok’s way of standing in solidarity with its superstar. Making it his most personal model yet, the shoe featured a portrait of Iverson on the outsole, prominently displaying his trademark braids and headband. Above it was the phrase “Only the Strong Survive,” which was inspired by the tattoo on his left arm and styled in the exact same script. The Answer IV wasn’t merely a sneaker—it was part of Iverson and the culmination of everything he had worked for.

Leather sneakers were fairly standard when the Answer IV hit shelves, but its leather-on-leather build, down to the inner lining, gave the model an extra-premium feel. While the retail version was released with an exposed zipper, the league issued a mandate requiring him to cover the zipper on his game shoes, hence the addition of a cross-strap to his player-edition versions and future rereleases. Still, Iverson wore his Answer IVs unzipped and unstrapped throughout the season. DMX I-Pak cushioning and split traction aided Iverson’s unique ability to accelerate past defenders and made the model a speedy guard shoe by default.

“These are special to me because this is the one and only time I went to the Finals,” Iverson said in a 2017 episode of Complex’s Sneaker Shopping. “And all season long, I did these in so many different flavors. It was crazy. I had, like, twenty-something different styles.”

Ironically, the colorway of the Answer IV that Iverson wore in Game 1 of the Finals wasn’t available to the public. Dubbed “Playoffs” or “Step Over” and eventually released as a retro in 2017, the simple black-and-white makeup was personally requested by Iverson, who wanted to mix up his colorways as much as possible during seasons.

“Basically, he was like, ‘Yo, we got to flip it,’” Todd Krinsky, senior vice president of Reebok, told Complex in 2012. “And sometimes we do it with the foam, so it was like, ‘What do you mean, flip it?’ He was like, ‘The white goes where the black goes, the black goes where the white goes [on the general release version].’ I was trying to visualize it—like, that’s not going to look right. He goes, ‘Make it.’ So we made it, had it for Game 1.”

The Answer IV was primarily marketed by way of a commercial in which the instrumental to “40 Bars” served as the backing track. Shot in the vein of an early 2000s rap video, the clip featured scenes of Iverson playing pickup, driving his car, and going to the club. In each segment, an alternate version of himself confronted him. The clip concluded with the tagline “Defy Convention,” two words that perfectly encapsulated everything that Iverson stood for and what his signature sneaker represented on the court.

Later in the year, on the heels of his MVP season and the global success of the Answer IV, Iverson signed his much-talked-about “lifetime deal” with Reebok. An extension of the original ten-year agreement Iverson signed with the brand in 1996, the deal reportedly pays him $800,000 annually and includes a $32 million trust that he can access in 2030—ensuring that he’s taken care of well beyond his basketball career.

“After he went to the Finals and had an amazing run in those Answer IVs, we started thinking more about the future and his family’s future,” Iverson’s long-time manager Gary Moore told Nice Kicks in 2015. “We just felt like Reebok would always be there for him and he would always be there for them.”

Today, the Answer IV is viewed as one of basketball’s most memorable shoes, and for that to happen, a lot of things had to fall into place. Iverson had to be a generational talent. He had to be uniquely competitive. He had to sign with the sneaker company that may not have been the obvious choice. He had to be defiant. He had to take on Shaq and Kobe. He had to be resilient. He had to step over the competition. But most important, he had to be Allen Iverson, unapologetically.

Honorable Mention
Visvim FBT

by Damien Scott

Raymond Loewy, the visionary behind designs like the US Air Force logo and the Coca-Cola bottle, developed an approach dubbed the MAYA principle: “Most Advanced, Yet Acceptable.” Loewy recognized that “the adult public’s taste is not necessarily ready to accept the logical solutions to their requirements if the solution implies too vast a departure from what they have been conditioned into accepting as the norm.” In other words, people want that new new, but not if it’s too new.

It’s unknown if Hiroki Nakamura, the founder of Visvim, knows who Loewy is, but the two share a similar ethos. Visvim, a Japanese clothing brand, is known for pieces that feel at once familiar and futuristic. No item in the brand’s oeuvre speaks to that mission more than the FBT.

Inspired by a boot Nakamura discovered at age fourteen, the FBT fuses a fringed moccasin upper with EVA Phylon and Vibram midsoles commonly found on sneakers and performance boots. Early in Visvim’s existence, Hiroshi Fujiwara, streetwear icon and founder of Fragment Design, showed Nakamura the cover of Fun Boy Three’s 1984 greatest-hits album, The Best of Fun Boy Three. Both designers were interested in the dark brown suede mocs band member Terry Hall was wearing. Fujiwara convinced Nakamura to make his own version of the shoe. Nakamura’s take appeared for the first time in Visvim’s second collection in 2001.

“The basic concept was fairly simple: to keep the raw appearance of Native American moccasins, but with the added functionality of being wearable in the city,” Nakamura explained in his 2014 dissertation on the FBT. “Being suitable for city life entailed more than just adding a sneaker sole; I was also concerned with the styling of the shoe, and the ability to mix and match with different outfits. This is where the idea of a removable fringe was born.”

Celebrities including Kanye West, John Mayer, Drake, and Eric Clapton have all sworn by FBTs. They were exclusive, expensive, versatile, and comfortable. They felt at once like something you had never seen and something you always had. And, per Nakamura, that was the goal all along. In a 2004 interview with Beinghunted, he explained, “One of life’s daily tools is a pair of shoes. We rely on them every day, so they should perform comfortably, be made of the nicest and high-tech materials available today, and still look great.”

Raymond Loewy would be proud.