Phoenix Suns’ Devin Booker and Nike enter a new chapter with the Book 2

Devin Booker’s second signature shoe is finally here.

The Phoenix Suns guard debuted Nike Book 2 on Tuesday night against the Portland Trail Blazers.

Booker, the franchise’s all-time leading scorer despite being only 29 years old, paid homage to his home franchise by wearing both a fiery orange “Phoenix” colorway and a team-toned “Rising” rendition. 

“I wanted to pay homage to Phoenix and start with orange,” Booker told Andscape. “Everybody got away from [team] colors on court, but I wanted to give my Suns fans something they can rock to each game.” 

At first glance, the mid-top stance of the sequel appears as a zag from the industry standard low top. Much like its precursor, the innovation is hidden under the hood.

“This is actually lower than my first one,” Booker said. “We wanted to trim the fat. Make the shoe sleeker.”

The result is a more refined, hollowed-out update of Book 1 that gets the four-time All-Star closer to the court than ever before.

“We wanted the [Book 1] benefits in a slimmer package,” Nike senior footwear designer Ben Nethongkome told Andscape. “We lowered the profile of the midsole, not the upper, so he’s sitting lower in the shoe for a better court feel.” 

Inspired by 1997’s Nike Air Zoom Spiridon running shoe, the performance basketball model makes its arrival roughly two years after its predecessor entered NBA arenas.

Reference to retro running and the implementation of forefoot Zoom Air all align with a faster, more modern Booker signature that’s indebted to the past but not living in it.

“The intent is to drive inspiration from the performance benefit of Spridion,” Nethongkome said. “How lightweight, breathable, and contained it is.”

If you look closely, the snug styling and anti-excess interior design are trends in current basketball footwear.

In a sense, the brief for the Nike Book 2 is not terribly different from that of the Jordan Tatum 4 in which Jordan Brand engineers aimed to trim the fat inside the shoe for a lighter look and more efficient feel. 

Much like fellow All-Star Jayson Tatum, Booker’s ability to get to his spots on the court sharply is paramount when mastering the mid-range game. Because of this, the design goals are once again addition by subtraction.

“Everything’s under the hood and cloaked in a modern way,” Nethongkome said.

By hiding the technology, Booker and Nethongkome aim to tackle performance basketball’s longest-running obstacle: off-the-court crossover.

“A lot of people have tried to transcend the court and it just looks like you’re wearing a basketball shoe,” Booker said. “The top of every conversation was not losing the integrity of being able to wear the shoe off court and on the streets.”

As mentioned, the long retail run of the Book 1 allowed for more time to tweak samples to the sequel. The two-year window of wear testing the Book 2 allowed Booker to zero in on both function and fashion.

Nethongkome recalls Booker trying on an early sample with casual clothing at a hotel meetup. The room they met in lacked a full-length mirror, forcing Booker to pinpoint a place where he could see just how the Book 2 would appear in a public setting.

“He left the room to try to find a mirror in the hallway,” Nethongkome recalled. “He went to a bathroom and started kicking his shoe up in the mirror to see how it looked on his feet.”

To Booker and Nethongkome’s credit, the introductory Book 1 courted casual wear better than most of its contemporaries. 

The Book 1’s crossover success was attributed not just to its wide-body cut but also through its consistent storytelling through colorways.

“We purposely made a canvas to tell stories,” Nethongkome said of Booker’s first model. “He wanted to get that itch out of his system.”

Debuted at an Arizona concert by Drake in Sept. 2023, the Book 1 was released in dozens of retail renditions over the course of nearly two years.

An off-court groundswell and online hive made the Book 1 one of the more polarizing models on the market. The back-to-basics design language elicited a hate-it-or-love-it response among fans, resonating the deepest with consumers who actively watch and play basketball.

Similarly, an extended retail run and off-genre approach to colorways kept the introductory silhouette on shelves and social media for 21 straight months – a window nearly double that of his Nike basketball peers.

Booker himself kept the Book 1 relevant all the while, sporting his first signature shoe in 168 outings according to KixStats. Countless colorways on his introductory model in NBA and Olympic action turned heads and created conversation, with Nethongkome noting over 50 unique styles worn by Booker.

Retail releases worn on court by Booker paid tribute to Nike’s “Neon” Air Max 95 retro runners, Forrest Gump’s famed Nike Cortez and the University of Kentucky’s vintage denim uniforms. Unreleased samples ranged from nods to former Suns such as Steve Nash and Penny Hardaway to an Air Force 1 homage worn in New York City.

“It gave us more opportunity to connect with him as a storyteller,” Nethongkome said of the lengthy window and numerous samples. “Some of them you haven’t even seen yet.”

Whether recounting personal pairs from his own NBA ascent or nodding to his archival Air Jordan 1 collection, the Book 1 told stories of Swoosh’s past.

With the sequel, storytelling comes second to innovation.

“On the 2, how do we up the ante on performance and still give a canvas?” Nethongkome said. “How do we bring some of that spirit back?” 

The storytelling spirit has already begun in the NBA and is soon headed to the NCAA.

Booker told Andscape that college colorways tied to Missouri, Oregon and BYU are on the way for the Book 2. They will pay homage to his father’s alma mater in Oregon, Nike’s flagship university, and his relationship with BYU coach Kevin Young, respectively.

Additionally, hype releases will play a part in the Book 2 rollout. According to Booker, limited launches of 1,000 pairs are in the works.

At the core of each iteration – collegiate, limited, or accessible – is storytelling, a trait Booker carries with Nike Basketball legends of the past.

“I had a chance to work with Kobe [Bryant] when I was young,” Nethongkome said. “With Kobe, he’d challenge every single decision we made with ‘Why?’ With Book, it’s the same thing. It’s got to be a story he wants to tell.”

Like Kobe Bryant before him, Booker looks to inject meaning into each detail of his shoe. 

Booker noted that the Spiridon served as the inspiration for his second signature, with elements of the classic Nike Air Force 1 and the more contemporary Nike SB Nyjah Free 2 adding design cues.

“There’s bits and pieces from shoes that I love that I try to include,” said Booker. “As much as I’d love to be different and do a super-high shoe in the midst of everyone doing lows, this performs and feels best on my foot.”

Fans awaiting the chance to put Nike Book 2 on their feet will have to remain patient.

Book 2 won’t hit stores until January 2026, releasing alongside an accompanying apparel collection that reflects his love for Phoenix on and off the court.

Distressed hoodies and cut-off sweatpants channel Booker’s signature pregame style, once again blurring the line between basketball function and lifestyle fashion.

The evolution in meshing innovation with aesthetics took some time – two years in fact. It’s all an attempt to push the game forward while bringing basketball footwear back to a golden era.

“There was a phase where people were wearing basketball shoes around,” Booker said. “We went all the way streetwear on the first one. I feel like this is the perfect blend.”

The post Phoenix Suns’ Devin Booker and Nike enter a new chapter with the Book 2 appeared first on Andscape.