New Balance basketball has experienced something of a resurgence in last half decade, building on the success of signature athlete Kawhi Leonard plus a growing cast of impressive players.

But they made their biggest signing yet in hoops in 2024, securing the signature of soon-to-be first overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft Cooper Flagg while he was still in college. 

With Flagg about to join the professional ranks, New Balance has decided now is the time to take a fresh approach to their basketball lineup, bringing in the services of Aimé Leon Dore founder and Creative Director Teddy Santis to forge the next generation of hoops shoes. 

New Balance set to revitalise basketball line behind Cooper Flagg, Teddy Santis

Since signing Kawhi Leonard away from Jordan brand in a massive coup in 2018, New Balance basketball have built up a solid cast of brand athletes including names like Tyrese Maxey, Jamal Murray, Zach LaVine, and Cameron Brink.

But with Flagg set to join the league this season with the Dallas Mavericks, the brand will look to relaunch their basketball division behind the man they call 'The Maine Event'. 

"It's been very much Teddy Santis running it for us, I think it's probably more along the lines of the way we launch apparel and lifestyle and collabs," New Balance Vice President Darren Tucker told The Sporting News recently.

"I think Cooper Flagg is going to be really important for us in connecting with the younger consumer and the way the brand shows up. We've had athletes, basketball athletes, but we haven't really had one that's cut through the way we need it to cut through to make a difference."

While Tucker and New Balance are all in on Flagg as a star, they are also making a concerted effort to ensure that they build the brand up in basketball as a whole, instead of resting their success entirely on the shoulders of one player. 

"It's about a boutique sports marketing approach, not try and do what the competition is and go and sign 300 players. We'll be a small portfolio of players that matter, which is what we're trying to do across the brand," Tucker said.

"It's a little bit too like trying to come at it from more brand point of view, I think, than just the athlete. Cooper will be important, but it'll be New Balance and Cooper Flagg, not Cooper Flagg and New Balance.

"If you look at Stephen Curry and Under Armour, he's basketball for them. Now, they've signed him forever, so it doesn't really matter, but the brand always, I think, needs to be the beacon and then the player is part of the journey."

Flagg recently made his debut with the brand at the 2025 NBA Draft Combine - wearing the New Balance Hesi Low V2 'Flavors Pack' - with the teenager previously required to wear Nike as part of Duke University in the NCAA. 

The Boston company are now hoping that he will become the MVP-level player that many project him to be, and lead them into the upper echelon of performance basketball footwear.