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When Duke Blue Devils star Zion Williamson went down Wednesday night against the North Carolina Tar Heels, there was a mixture of confusion and concern, among other emotions. The freshman phenom’s foot broke completely through his Nike shoe, and it resulted in a knee injury for the player dubbed as the likely No. 1 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft.
After the injury occurred, many poured out their thoughts and wishes to Williamson, but it was an interesting situation for Oklahoma City Thunder forward Paul George. Zion was wearing George’s custom Nike PG 2.5 shoe during the injury, and on Thursday, the NBA star addressed the situation. As ESPN’s Royce Young revealed, George wished Williamson well and said that he’s spoken with Nike about the incident.
“First, I just want to wish him all the best. I don’t know the severity of the injury right now, but just wish him the best through the recovery if it is something severe. Honestly, I’m just there for him through that time of being hurt and being injured – big stage, big game, him not being able to play in that.” George stated.
“Outside of that, I don’t necessarily know what happened, how it happened. I talked with Nike to see what went wrong and what happened with the shoe. I take pride in that, my shoe has been a successful shoe, not only in college but in the NBA.”
Erik Horne of The Oklahoman also reported that George reached out to Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski to check on Williamson after the injury.
It’s a tough situation, and obviously, no one should point any fingers at George for this (although he did receive a decent number of tweets after the injury). Heavy.com’s Jon Adams did the research to find out that it was the Thunder star’s shoe that was being worn as well.
Closer Look at Zion Williamson’s Shoe During Injury
As Adams detailed, you can see in the video from the injury that George’s ‘PG’ logo is on the heel of the Nike shoe. Then just below that is an up-close photo of the logo which is featured on the forward’s shoe, via Sole Collector.
There’s obviously no easy way to explain a fluke situation like this, but it’s unfortunate regardless. Nike responded after the injury, as ESPN’s Ryan McGee reported, stating that they are concerned about Zion and are working to identify the issue.
“We are obviously concerned and want to wish Zion a speedy recovery,” Nike said in a statement. “The quality and performance of our products are of utmost importance. While this is an isolated occurrence, we are working to identify the issue.”
Nike’s Stock Takes Hit After Zion Williamson Injury
In the early hours Thursday after the injury occurred, Yahoo! Finance showed a swift decline in Nike’s stock. After dropping from $84.84 to $83.60 early, the price sat around roughly $83.50 just prior to 3 p.m. EST.
As Darren Rovell of The Action Network detailed, a 1 percent drop was an on-paper loss of $1.12 billion in market cap.
The decline continued shortly after and has resulted in the company taking a major hit throughout the day. Whether it will bounce back up and how quickly could be an interesting topic, but there’s no denying this strange incident has left a mark.
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