In January 2024, Damian Lillard made history with adidas as he became the first athlete in adidas’ 75-year history to have a company location named after him, the German sportswear giant’s gymnasium court at its Portland, Oregon headquarters. This may have been a signal for what was to come, as nearly a year later, the day after Lillard and his squad won the 2024 NBA Cup, Shams Charania of ESPN reported that Damian Lillard had signed a lifetime contract extension with Adidas.
Lillard began his journey with The Three Stripes before entering the league, eventually signing a massive 10-year $100 million contract in 2014. A year after he signed the historic deal, and during his third season in the NBA, he launched his first signature sneaker, the adidas D Lillard 1. Since then, we’ve seen yearly iterations of Dame’s adidas silhouette and multiple takedown models, with the latest being the adidas Dame 9. With this contract extension, Lillard’s place will be cemented within The Three Stripes’ basketball division for decades. Hopefully, we will have many more adidas Dame releases.
Alongside James Harden’s sneaker line, Damian Lillard has had one of the longest signature sneaker series with adidas in the company's history, second only to Derrick Rose. Throughout the entire NBA, there are only a handful of other active NBA athletes who have signed a lifetime contract with a sneaker brand, including Lebron James (Nike), Kevin Durant (Nike), and Steph Curry (Under Armour).
With this signing, adidas has only its third-lifetime deal with an athlete, as in 2017, the company signed a similar agreement with Lionel Messi. Considering the shift in adidas’ priorities regarding its basketball division, as Trae Young has left the company and the lineup has heavily focused on James Harden and Anthony Edwards, it’s great to see the brand stick to an athlete who has played his entire career as a member of The Three Stripes.
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Sneakerhead from South Florida who turned his passion into a career. Concerts, music, trying new restaurants, and catching the latest movies are some of the things I enjoy when not writing for Sole Retriever. Email: nick@soleretriever.com
