RealGM

Protege, the shoe company Harrington has been working to get off the ground for more than two years, unveiled its first shoe this month: the StackJack-1, which Jackson has begun wearing.

"It's very exciting, to finally get it out there and let people start realizing that it is going to be for real," Harrington said. "Obviously, we haven't had a full-out launch yet, but Jack is wearing the first run of the shoe."

Harrington owns the firm with two business partners from New York, Rodney Henry and Michael Steinberg, and said the name derives from an acronym: People Reaching Out To Everyone, Gaining Everything.

Harrington, on the other hand, is not doing the former. Although he's been using Proteges during practices and shootarounds for months as part of the testing process, Harrington is still subject to a personal contract with Nike that runs through the 2008-09 season. So he continues to wear Nikes during games, the latest batch being Air Zoom Sharkleys.

"As my situation works out, hopefully I'll be able to wear (Proteges) soon also," Harrington said. "We'll see how that goes."

The StackJack-1s are slated to go on sale in the fall, with a list price in the neighborhood of $65, positioning it between the less expensive Starbury line started by New York Knicks guard Stephon Marbury and higher-end gear from Nike and Reebok.

"We wanted to target more of that mid-range area," Harrington said. "I think that's a better place to be. It's more attractive to retailers. ... We may have shoes that are more expensive (in the future), but we're going to start there for now."

That's what teammate Al Harrington said, and he should know.

Protégé is his shoe and apparel company.

Harrington has taken a cue and expanded from New York Knicks point guard Stephon Marbury, who created a line of very affordable basketball shoes.

Harrington said that ever since he was a little kid, he wanted to have his own shoe, and Protégé is the culmination of his vision.


Al Harrington's Protege A3H shoe: Retails for approximately $40

Harrington debuted his A3H sneaker on Tuesday.

the bizness wrote:haha they're probably called starjack-1's because they're totally jacking steph's starbury-1 idea.

anyway they don't look that bad, but it is kind of funny they're already in knick colors:

ezmoney707 wrote:

the bizness wrote:haha they're probably called starjack-1's because they're totally jacking steph's starbury-1 idea.

anyway they don't look that bad, but it is kind of funny they're already in knick colors:

Its the Warriors colors.