Nike SB

Nike SB is Nike’s skateboarding division, and it doesn’t make decks — it makes shoes and apparel. If you landed here looking for wood, this isn’t the brand. What Nike SB is, more than anything, is the most argued-about company in modern skateboarding: it forced its way in in 2002 after a failed attempt in the ’90s, and today it puts shoes on a big chunk of the world’s best skaters.

History

The first attempt was a flop. In the late ’90s Nike put out skate models called the Choad, the Snak and the Schimp, and skateboarding rejected them wholesale — too corporate, too outside.

In 2002 Sandy Bodecker came back with the opposite plan. The Dunk SB — a basketball shoe reworked for skating — went out only through independent skate shops, and the ads went into skate magazines. The early team included Richard Mulder, Reese Forbes and Danny Supa. In 2005 Jeff Staple’s “Pigeon” Dunk ended in queues and street chaos in New York, sealing the uneasy marriage between skateboarding and sneaker collecting. That same year brought the SB Blazer with Lance Mountain and the brand’s first signature shoe, Paul Rodriguez’s, reissued in 2025 as “The One”.

On video: “Nothing But The Truth” (2007), “Debacle” (2008), “The SB Chronicles” trilogy (2011, 2013, 2015), “Trust Fall” (2019), “Constant” (2021) and “Gassed Up” (2023). Bodecker ran the division until his death in 2018.

The ugly side is documented too. Jenkem reported in 2020 on how limited Dunk drops turned skate shops into hype nodes, and on how in the early 2000s Nike made shops buy general-release stock to qualify for the limited ones. Highsnobiety laid out how Nike SB ended up smothering Savier, Nike’s own Portland skate shoe label, which folded in 2004.

The team

The current roster includes Yuto Horigome and Rayssa Leal — gold and bronze at the 2024 Olympics, each in their own Dunk colourway — plus Nyjah Huston, Ishod Wair, Leo Baker and Stefan Janoski, all four with a live signature model, along with Paul Rodriguez, Dashawn Jordan and Grant Taylor, who hit twenty years with the brand in 2024. The 2023 video “Gassed Up” features Nicole Hause, Hayley Wilson, Sarah Meurle, Chloe Covell and Arin Lester, among others.

The shoes

The Dunk SB keeps the basketball Dunk’s silhouette and adds a padded tongue and collar, a Zoom Air unit in the heel of the insole and thick leather or suede. The Blazer and the Janoski go the other way: slim profile, vulcanised sole, far more board feel. The current signature models are the Zoom Nyjah 3, the Air Max Ishod, the React Leo and the Zoom Janoski OG+, and collaborations — Supreme, Stüssy, Thrasher and half the industry — are as much the business as the shoes are.

Who it’s for

If you skate stairs and need cushioning, a Nike SB cupsole with Zoom Air will save your heels better than a thin vulc. If you want board feel at a sane price, look at the Janoski or at another brand entirely. One warning: plenty of Dunks are limited drops built to be resold, not skated. If you’re here to skate, buy the general release and skip the queue. Line them up against the rest in skate shoes.