Every so often a shoe shows up that the league is actually scared of. The APL Concept 1 was that shoe.
Athletic Propulsion Labs built the Concept 1 around a forefoot device called Load ‘N Launch, a little cluster of compression springs that promised to add real inches to your vertical. The NBA took one look and banned it for the 2010 to 2011 season, the first shoe ever kept off an NBA floor not for how it looked but for the advantage it might give. You could not buy better marketing if you tried, and APL did not have to.
The Sole Collector version landed in 2011, tied to APL’s first anniversary, done up in an all green colorway that leaned all the way into the banned-shoe mystique. The way you got a pair was pure community. Forum members chased it by stacking up the most SoleID points through the month, dropping their size in the thread and hoping, while casual readers got their own shot through the social channels. No reseller line, no luck of the draw at a store. You earned it by being around.
That is the part worth holding onto. A lot of brands would have handed a hyped, NBA-banned silhouette to influencers and called it a day. This one went to the people who showed up and put in the points, which is about the most SC way to release a shoe there is.
The Concept 1 is a strange and great artifact now, a moment when a small brand spooked the biggest league in the world and the community got to wear the proof. Springs in the forefoot, green on green, and a story you still have to explain to people who think you are making it up.
Did you chase the points for this one, and what were you grinding SoleID for back then?
Photos by Nick DePaula
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