Ray Allen’s the most prolific 3-point shooter in NBA history, and he’s also one of the players with the best on-court sneakers, too, but the 41-year-old shooting guard, who last played for the Miami Heat in 2014, is calling it quits on his 19-season career. He’s leaving behind quite the legacy: two NBA championships, 10 times being an All-Star, and being distinguished as having the best Air Jordan PE collection of all time. The majority of Allen’s sneakers were only made for him, but Jordan Brand did produce a few of his special editions for the public, and none drew more animosity than the Air Jordan XIIIs that were released in conjunction with him breaking the league’s 3-point record.
The sneakers were ultra-limited and sold mainly at Boston-area sneaker stores in 2011, one of those shops being a Footaction located at Square One Mall in Saugus, Massachusetts, and it was the craziest release that the store had ever seen.
“I'd spent a decade running a sneaker store, had a one-year gig with Nike, but I'd never seen anything like the release of the Air Jordan Ray Allen XIIIs,” says the store’s manager, Arthur Clark. “Besides being super-excited to find out that my store was going to be one of the only stores in the world to carry this shoe, I was even more excited to know I wouldn't have to participate in any craziness to get my pair.”
The excitement soon started to fade when Clark found out how insane it would be to release the sneakers. Nike only allocated the store with 24 pairs, although Clark admits that he told people he had received 18, which was far less than the demand. Allen was only a few years removed from winning the 2008 NBA Finals with the Boston Celtics and turned into a local celebrity. Couple that with the hype on any Player Edition pair of Air Jordans, and it was the perfect storm for a disastrous sneaker drop.
“Everything was cool until the list of stores getting them hit the Internet, and then the madness began,” Clark says. “A week's worth of calls from around the world poured in every day, [and I was] dealing with people that flew into Boston just to get a pair.”
Then, as Clark puts it, “The offers started to roll in.”
It’s not unheard of to hear that people will go to extreme lengths to get a pair of sneakers, but the thirst was beyond real for these $175 Air Jordans, which currently have a resale value of $2,000.
“Men [offered me] a night with their girlfriend, moms were willing to [sleep with me] so their child could get a pair, a girl who worked at the mall [sent me nudes] to get them for her boyfriend,” Clark says. “A guy put a thousand dollars in my hand and [told] me, 'I'll come back Saturday with the $175 for the shoes.'”
It wasn’t just people who were offering up sexual favors or large sums of cash who were trying to get the shoes, either. Clark admits that several big-name customers tried to use their celebrity to get the Air Jordans, too. “I had to turn down R&B artists, rappers, and even former American League MVP Vladimir Guerrero.”
All of this lead up to the actual release, which took place on July 23. “It was extreme chaos and by far the craziest sneaker store experience I've ever had,” Clark says. “[That doesn’t even account for] the personal security that was hired for me, the fiery oil truck crash that didn't phase the campers at all, or the near riot that almost broke out when the state police tried to get people to go home.”
Ray Allen will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and his sneakers will be talked about for years to come. But the pandemonium he was able to create for his limited-edition Air Jordans will be a minor, although exciting, footnote in his celebrated career.
