OG Anunoby's Skechers Nexus Gets a Lower East Side Drop

OG Anunoby's Skechers SKX Nexus "NYC Blue" goes on sale today, Friday, October 16, at Extra Butter's Lower East Side store, first come, first served from 1PM to 7PM, with Anunoby making a special guest appearance. The colorway is monochrome blue with orange laces and orange details on the tongue tag, and the shoe is a basketball player edition from the New York Knicks forward. Extra Butter lists the size run as 4M to 15M.

1PM to 7PM, and No Promises

Extra Butter's own notice is blunt about the odds. It says product availability is limited and "purchasing a pair is not guaranteed," and it adds that "OG Anunoby's appearance does not guarantee an opportunity to meet or interact with him." Those two sentences set the terms of the afternoon: a six hour window, a line, a guest and no guarantee of either a shoe or a handshake.

The release is in store only, at the Lower East Side location. Extra Butter operates two New York stores, the other in Long Island City, and this drop is assigned to one of them. The campaign images were shot by photographer Edwin Ortiz Jr. and produced by Keep It Local Studio, with Jeremiah Daniel among the models.

A July Sellout Behind Today's Line

The shoe is not new to the public. Skechers opened the NYC Blue colorway to preorder in June, and its press release said the shoe sold out quickly after an exclusive launch on Skechers.com on July 1, at 120 dollars, the same figure Extra Butter lists today. The Las Vegas Sun described it on July 3 as Anunoby's Skechers player edition basketball shoe. Today's sale is the second chance for anyone who missed the online run, and it moves the same shoe from a screen to a sidewalk.

Model names in the coverage do not all match. Complex first reported that the Nexus would not release to the public, then updated its story to note a related NYC Blue SKX Reign player edition from Skechers, which is why a search for the shoe returns two names. Extra Butter's notice uses SKX Nexus, and that is the name used here.

Extra Butter Has Built a Habit Out of Sellouts

The store has made a pattern out of products that sold out elsewhere first. On July 21 it sold the 270 dollar Casio G Shock Pokemon watch in store, after Casio's online preorder sold out and resale climbed to nearly 450 dollars on StockX. On August 20 it sold the Vans Old Skool 36 LX Souvenir Navy first come, first served at both New York stores. That week the CARNAN x ASICS GEL Cumulus 16 Path II also went on sale first come, first served at the Lower East Side and Long Island City stores.

The Vans Navy was the third colorway of a pack that began with Asphalt in June and Faded Black and Oatmeal in July, so the store has had a product on sale in June, July and August before today. Those two August releases ran across both locations. The Anunoby sale runs in one. That is a narrower setup than either August sale, and it puts the sale and the guest appearance on a single floor on the Lower East Side. It also lines up a New York player, a colorway called NYC Blue and a New York retailer in one block of Manhattan.

Men's 4 Through 15

The size run is the detail that stands out in the notice. Sizes 4M to 15M cover buyers who usually sit outside a limited basketball release, with smaller feet at one end and the largest sizes at the other. Few limited sneaker sales state a range that wide in advance, and a wide run is the part of this sale that favors people who arrive early, since every size competes for the same pairs.

Extra Butter does not say how many pairs it has. It says only that the supply is limited, and that the line forms for the afternoon. The arithmetic around the shoe is short: a July launch sold out online, and a store on the Lower East Side is selling the shoe from 1PM to 7PM on one Friday, to whoever is standing in line.