Puma placed its products on the feet of puma shoes Hall of Famers and world champions, even once persuading a scoring titleholder to come on board. Pumas have graced the hardwood of high school showcases, college games and NBA Slam Dunk Contests. Deals were inked with everyone from the NBA's tallest player ever to a high-flying phenom from the University of North Carolina who the company hoped would change its basketball fate.

It all started in 1973, when Frazier became not only Puma's first signature athlete but also the first player in basketball history to get his own sneaker. At the time, Frazier had a championship ring and was after another, averaging 21.1 points, 5.9 assists and a career-high 7.9 rebounds a game during the puma suede '72-'73 season as the All-Star point guard for the New York Knicks.Before Air Jordans, there were Puma Clydes. Frazier wanted a shoe that was wide, light and designed with sufficient interior padding.

The Clyde ultimately emerged as one of the fenty puma most influential sneakers of all time  a shoe that, after being embraced by hip-hop culture, transcended the sport of basketball. It was the epitome of style and embodiment of cool. Everyone, from ballplayers to break dancers, wanted to wear Puma  and Frazier was a huge reason why.I'd been a Frazier fan since I was a little kid," said retired two-time NBA champion Wes Matthews, 59, who endorsed Puma from 1984 to 1986.

English's proficiency caught the attention puma slides of Puma, which lured him away from a previous shoe deal with Pony.Puma didn't have to sell me too much," said English, an eight-time All-Star and Hall of Famer. Now 65, he represented the brand from 1983 to 1987, primarily as one of the faces of the Puma Sky II . "The Nuggets back then, we were & very fleet-footed. We pushed the ball up the floor. We ran. So I envisioned my Pumas being the animal that they were  getting me up and down the floor.

The same year English began wearing Pumas, the Houston Rockets selected Ralph Sampson with the No. 1 pick in the 1983 NBA draft. The 7-foot-4 Sampson had a history of wearing PRO-Keds in both high school and at the University of Virginia. Yet, as Sampson at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, puma fenty which he entered in 2012, PRO-Keds went on a hiatus shortly into his first season, halting the production of basketball sneakers.

Puma scooped up Sampson, making him the company's highest-profile basketball signing since Frazier. But there was one problem: Puma didn't manufacture shoes in his gargantuan size 17. So the brand had to produce prototypes, which Sampson wore for most of his rookie year, including in the inaugural NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 1984.Sampson's exclusive prototypes, some game-worn versions of which have sold at auction over the years, turned into pairs of his own sneakers that Puma then cranked out tirelessly.