The Quantum Frozen Blue kept the reflective heel the NBA wouldn’t clear

Two days before Christmas 2020, Ye’s basketball shoe came out in a colour you couldn’t miss. The adidas Yeezy QNTM Frozen Blue landed on 23 Dec on adidas.com/Yeezy and at select stores. adidas confirmed to Complex that it’d run in every size from adult down to infant. Nice Kicks lists the adult pair as GZ8872.

The Quantum started life as a basketball shoe the NBA didn’t want. Frozen Blue kept the part the league objected to, and put it on pairs small enough for a baby.

Blue knit that glows

It’s a monofilament mesh and Primeknit upper in a bright blue, with grey and cream streaks running through it, and the knit glows in the dark. There’s suede on the toe, a black neoprene tongue and collar like the 700 V3’s, and the reflective heel. Full-length Boost sits under all of it, on a cream outsole. Hypebeast put the palette next to the 700 V3 Arzareth.

The court version, the BSKTBL, was lined up in Frozen Blue for the day before in the UK. That one’s got an extra TPU layer over the knit and more padding at the ankle.

September 2018: the heel the league didn’t want

The trouble started with one post. In September 2018 Ye posted himself in a high-top with reflective 3M at the heel, and Hypebeast read his caption as the first official Yeezy basketball shoe. Two weeks later ESPN reported that the NBA wouldn’t clear it for games, because of that heel.

February 2020: trucks, then two versions

It didn’t reach anyone until All-Star weekend 2020 in Chicago. Free pairs went out from military-style trucks on 14 Feb, and stores had it on 16 Feb. By then it had split in two, Hypebeast reported: the BSKTBL for the court, and the QNTM, a slightly altered lifestyle version. The first BSKTBL, Barium, followed on 25 Jun 2020.

In 2018 the Quantum was one photo on Ye’s Instagram, the heel lit up by a camera flash. By Christmas 2020 you could buy it glowing blue, in infant sizes.