Nike Flips Swoosh for LeBron's Son

Bronny James just picked up a subtle but loaded nod from Nike. During last week's Lakers-Cavs game, the young guard laced up a bright pink pair of his dad LeBron James' Witness IXs that quietly carried two fresh details: his own "b9" logo— a lowercase "b" with his No. 9 tucked inside; check it out more closely here—and a reversed Nike "Swoosh," reports Fast Company. The latter site has images of the Swoosh.

That flipped Swoosh has a history. Nike first turned it around in the mid-'90s on Dennis Rodman's Air Darwins and Andre Agassi's Air Flares, pairing the tweak with athletes known as much for personality as performance. Since then, it's shown up on LeBron's 2012 Nike LeBron X, Kobe Bryant's Kobe AD NXT, Giannis Antetokounmpo's Freak line, and Paul George's PlayStation-themed PG 2—plus a string of Travis Scott collaborations that helped make the reversed mark a streetwear staple.

Sports Illustrated notes that Nike's weaving in of a player's initials into a shoe's logo also isn't new: It's been done for such stars as Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark and Spanish tennis star Carlos Alcaraz. But the Swoosh is in a different category: For a company that rarely messes with its most valuable visual asset, inverting the Swoosh signals a break from the usual.