The NBA And WNBA Come Together For A Nike Dunk High EMB Ahead Of All-Star Weekend 2022

The NBA All-Star Weekend is set to take place in Cleveland from February 18th to 20th. Ahead of the event, the 75th anniversary-celebrating organization has teamed up with the WNBA and NIKE, Inc. for the special release of a women’s Nike Dunk High EMB stylized as the very thing at the core of the weekend: a basketball.

Unlike past “EMB” releases, the newly-surfaced pair forgoes any team or locale-specific colorway in favor of a near-tonal one inspired by the game’s equipment. While Nike has never publicly confirmed what the model’s “EMB” (read: “embedded”) iterations represent, one can deduce that pairs conjured up under this banner nod to elements that’ve fixed themselves firmly within the sport of basketball, its history and culture. (Past releases included a Nike Dunk for the Los Angeles Lakers and a Nike Blazer Mid inspired by New York City’s Coney Island, which has produced incredible talent over the decades.)

Smooth and pebbled leather come together across the high-top silhouette’s upper, with the most overt nods to basketball arriving via the textured overlays and bold orange ensemble. Profile swooshes alternator between white and black makeups, while a darker orange lands on the satin tongue and collar area. The Swoosh could’ve produced a basketball-inspired Nike Dunk on its own, but it didn’t; NBA and WNBA logos are printed onto the undersides of each shoe’s tongue labels. A slight off-white tinge is applied to the midsole, likely as a callback to old school gear and all three partners’ decades-old histories.

Enjoy official images of the pair ahead, and expect a Nike SNKRS launch soon.

For more women’s propositions from NIKE, Inc., check out the Air Jordan 4 “Blank Canvas” set to arrive on February 24th.

Images: Nike