Salehe Bembury expected to be emotional when he saw Tyrese Haliburton wearing the shoes he designed on an NBA floor for the first time, but the tears came before the Pacers star even made it onto the court. The outpouring began as soon as Bembury saw him stretching in the sneakers in the tunnel before game one of the NBA Finals.

Like many, if not most, sneakerheads — be they the people creating, consuming or having sneakers named for them — the love affair for Bembury began with basketball as a child. He’s since gone on to become one of the most in-demand creatives in the field, a free agent who’s brought his name and magic touch to Puma, Crocs and New Balance. But what he still hadn’t done was create the very sort of product that first captivated him, a performance basketball shoe.

“I wept because it was my eight year old self finally accomplishing what I always wanted to accomplish in my career,” Bembury told Footwear News in a video call a week ago.

The Puma Hali 1 is a major milestone for both Bembury and Haliburton, the latter of whom steps into a small field of NBA players to have a shoe named after them. It also entrenches Puma deeper into the sport after the 2018 relaunch of its basketball line, which seems to have had a false start with Jay-Z’s leadership quietly fizzling out but is now on the fourth and fifth models for Breanna Stewart and LaMelo Ball, respectively — the latter of which has proven to be particularly popular with Gen Z.

Puma has announced Monday that the Hali 1 will hit the market Sept. 26 in the blue Opal colorway for $130. On the day prior, Puma will host a “Hali Mart” pop-up in Indianapolis with 317 pairs available early, a number chosen to match the city’s area code.

As much weight comes with his name, Bembury wants it to be clear the Hali 1 is not a “Salehe Bembury” shoe; it’s a Tyrese Haliburton shoe designed by Salehe Bembury. What he calls “organic squiggles” on the midsole aren’t the same as his signature fingerprint motif, known best from Bembury’s Crocs line, but a unique design that came as a finishing touch near the end of the process and signifies the smoothness of Haliburton’s game.

The saying goes in footwear production that “the last comes first,” and indeed, Bembury in the Puma team started with the fit for the Hali 1 first. From there, they discovered that the Puma cat logo fit perfectly beneath the collar.

Haliburton’s chief request for his shoe was for the weight to come in similar to what he played in prior to joining Puma. Bembury is careful not to name names, but Kixstats, a platform documenting what professional players wear, has the Nike Kobe 8 as his second-most worn shoe after the Puma All-Pro Nitro.

For the final wear test, Haliburton was blindfolded and given two shoes: his old go-to and his signature model. He tried to identify which was which and actually ended up choosing wrong.

Weight optimization was just one of many new challenges for Bembury, who has collaborated on existing models before and created brand-new silhouettes but hasn’t ever had to focus so much on performance. Leaning on the experts already in-house at Puma helped the designer navigate the new territory, and he also found himself out of his element in pitching Haliburton, as Puma tapped him to choose a signature athlete to sign and design for.

“I’m a really big believe in speaking up and being outspoken about the things I have expertise in,” Bembury said. “And then within the things I don’t, allowing those in the room that have that expertise to shine bright.”

A lesser challenge, but one sports fans can likely sympathize with, was working with someone who not only plays for a rival team but has torched Bembury’s beloved New York Knicks several times now. In fact, it was Haliburton’s performance in defeating the Knicks in the 2024 Eastern Conference Semi-Finals that told Bembury, “He was him.” That isn’t to say, however, that there isn’t some ribbing in jest between Bembury and Haliburton, who now count each other as friends.

“At the end of the day, this partnership takes priority over, like, some childhood fandom that I have,” Bembury said. “I will always be a Knicks fan, but this is my career and Tyrese’s career. So this is taking precedence over some entertainment that I enjoy from time to time.”

The Hali 1 joins a recent trend of basketball sneakers recapturing lifestyle appeal after years without crossover, but that was never the intent. Bembury, of course, has established a firm eye for what’s fit for everyday wear, but he insists that it’s a player’s performance in a given shoe that will ultimately make people want to wear it in their own lives.

He points to Vince Carter’s “Dunk of Death” and Allen Iverson’s crossover as examples — as well as Bembury nailing the game-winning shot in the NBA Finals opening game while competing in the Hali 1 for the first time.

“It’s the moments like that that you cannot write or predict,” Bembury said, “but they will give the shoe or the product momentum.”