About a year ago, Jaylen Brown and Que Gaskins were searching for creative teams to help Brown’s brand, 741 Performance, launch what they called its “second album” — a sneaker rollout named “NOT from HERE.”
Longtime sneaker designers Sean O’Shea and Geoff Deas, whose resumés include brands like Nike, Adidas, Puma, Converse, and Anta Sports, were among the candidates. O’Shea and Deas were Anta’s general manager and creative director, respectively, and key figures in launching the China-based brand in the U.S. They offered their expertise to Brown’s brand.
“That’s our major goal: How do we get [Brown] off the ground because there aren’t that many players who have had their own brand,” O’Shea recently told The Inquirer. “So I think that’s where we came in. That’s our biggest focus. … Not that we don’t want to get paid, but it’s way more important, from our point of view, that it gets off the ground and becomes successful and is a competitor with some of the big guys.”
New world order
As Brown, who was traded to the Sixers in July, and Gaskins, the CEO of 741 Performance, approached the brand’s second sneaker rollout, they wanted to push “the status quo and challenge different traditions and standards and boundaries” of the sneaker industry.
The shoe will come in three colorways, which Gaskins calls “worlds”: black, gray, and red.
The “NOT from HERE” collection will also include clothing, a “performance recovery shoe” that can serve as a lifestyle sneaker, and a “recovery slide” to wear after workouts. The brand plans to add more colorways and potentially a running shoe next spring.
Brown already has immersed himself in Philly, but the “NOT from HERE” collection has taken on a new meaning after his decade-long run in Boston.
“I think him understanding, ‘I want to be able to open up young people’s minds and have them think about even places that they’re not even aware of.’ I think all of that symbolism, all of that energy, all of that frequency is a part of what we’ve been trying to build,” Gaskins said. “Even the idea of this album being called ‘NOT from HERE’ and how it’s played out now because he’s even playing on the [Sixers] when this product will launch in Philly, where he’s not from.
“Now, being in a new market … and being able to tell that story is ultimately what we were trying to do with this project and with this collection.”
Gaskins will have a large hand in helping Brown’s brand compete in the industry. He is no stranger to the sneaker business or Philadelphia athletes. He played a key role in Allen Iverson landing at Reebok 30 years ago. Gaskins was responsible for the “Iverson business,” and the RBK division of the brand, he says. He also served in several leadership roles in the National Basketball Players Association, where he met Brown in 2017. He helped advise Brown when he was weighing sneaker deal options before creating his own in 2024 and has been the CEO of 741 Performance since March 2025.
“I really think [Brown’s] trying to build something bigger that’s really representative of the work I’ve always done,” Gaskins said. “Even with the work I did with Allen and the cultural impact that he was having on the world — I’ve always felt like these guys had great power, great influence, and I think someone like Jaylen understands that.
“What Jaylen is building, I think it’s bigger than just a shoe company. If I’m being honest, I think he’s really trying to create a new reference standard for how athletes can take ownership.”
Brown released his debut sneaker, the Rover 741, in 2024. But Gaskins, who calls himself Brown’s “sous chef,” didn’t want to “stall or hurt or hinder” the progress of the brand by sticking with the same designers on every new project. Gaskins noted that Brown “had this ability to connect with a lot of types of different people, a lot of types of creators.”
That’s where O’Shea and Deas come in. They have taken over production of Brown’s debut shoe along with “all the design, apparel, footwear, everything for the second [shoe rollout].”
“If this was the music industry, we weren’t just making music. We were doing everything that like a Capitol Records or somebody [like that] was trying to do also,” O’Shea said. “So it’s like we were printing albums. We’re trying to do all of it. That’s the cool thing about Jaylen and what he’s trying to do is he wants to make sure he owns, or at least understands, all of it.”
Deas estimates the newest shoe is “about 90% there right now,” with some adjustments still to come, including a drop-in footbed to account for basketball players who use orthotics in their shoes.
The planned initial release of the shoe to retailers is late November, but O’Shea says Brown “will be ready to go to play in it” by Sixers media day on Sept. 28. The shoe will make its regular-season debut in the team’s opener against the Knicks on Oct. 20 (7 p.m., NBC10).
Inside the shoe details
The design and model for the “NOT from HERE” shoe is based on Brown’s love for outer space, says Gaskins. After getting acclimated to Brown’s vision, O’Shea and Deas worked on creating and executing a design “with the limited innovations and materials and technologies we have here.”
“We’re trying to mirror, I think, the vision of the growth of his brand. So the [741 Rover], the first shoe … it’s like from Earth to the journey to getting out there and just like his brand, the exploration of it,” O’Shea said. “The design language is very human design language, the way it’s engineered. And then we took that and we said, ‘Hey, from there, let’s do it as if you’re out there and now you’re in this open space.’
“It’s more about what’s out there [in space]. Even the design language is as if it was made in space and organically. There’s no human lines on it. It’s like it almost the technology grew symbiotically. It’s technology meets something that’s really not from here.”
Added Deas: “[We were] just building out the inspiration boards and trying to see what kind of organic shapes can mash together — like if a spaceship went through space and it was catching some sort of creature.”
The low top shoe’s design in the black colorway mimics “technology circuit boards” on the upper part with a green underlay to “lean into that metallic, iridescent finish” of the prototype to lean into the space theme with a midsole “popping out and [that] locks [the shoe] in place” to ensure Brown’s feet don’t slide while he’s playing.
The laces are hidden because the pair are hoping to add a boa system for the shoe, which is an adjustable dial to make the shoe tighter around an ankle. Gaskins said the boa system, which is uncommon in basketball sneakers, likely won’t be in the first wave of the shoe’s release — but hopes to provide it “later in the year, maybe for a playoff run.”
Brown has played in the new sneakers and posted them on Instagram, including during the viral workout video with new teammates LeBron James and Tyrese Maxey. Because the shoe is a prototype, Brown is using this time to test it during workouts and other events he’s participated in this summer. The feedback, said Deas and O’Shea, “was pretty immediate,” and O’Shea added that Brown is “very, very involved.”
“We really wanted to get in there and think for him almost so that creatively,” O’Shea said, “we could produce stuff that really encompasses his vision and where he wants to go with the brand and creatively, how he connects to the kids.”
