In 2007, the Nike SB “What The Dunk” sparked a debate for the ages: Right vs. Left. Which has the better colorways? The debate only intensified when Nike moved the concept over to their basketball line in 2012. Today, the rivalry has reached fever pitch, with rumors that our nation’s political parties will cease using terms “right” and “left”, lest they draw the ire of voters on the wrong side of the sneakerhead aisle. The only debate which even dares to continue to exist is, of course, the Left Twix vs. Right Twix saga. Thankfully, we don’t have to choose sides because we only eat mini-ice cream Twix which come one to a pack . . . but we’ve digressed.
Upon reading a recent Sneaker News post listing the many colorways on the What The LeBron 11, we decided to throw our hat, er, feet, in the ring and try to settle this argument the only way we know how — with data. To be clear, we’re now talking about the left vs. right shoe debate, and not chocolates.
Methodology:
The great debate will be settled by resell price. To do that, we set out to calculate the weighted average deadstock price for each shoe:
- Using the Sneaker News article and making a few judgement calls, we identified the historical LeBron’s referenced in the What the LeBron 11
- Any parts that referenced an entire series, as opposed to a specific model, were removed
- The Stewie Griffin 6 was removed because there were no DS pairs sold in the past year, and only one used, which went for $15k
- All parts remaining on each shoe were counted: the left has 12 parts; the right 10
- The average deadstock price for each shoe was calculated using our standard Campless methodology (past 12 months, DS, mens, remove statistical outliers)
- Finally, a weighted average deadstock price for each shoe was calculated by adding up the avg ds price for each of the individual pairs, and dividing by the number of unique parts
Find Your Favorite Lebron 11 on eBay
Key Insights / Weighted Average Results:
- Left shoe: $729
- Right shoe: $815
- The pair: $768
So that settles it right? The right shoe is better than the left shoe by almost 12%, and better than the entire pair by 6%.
Not so fast. Consider the following:
- Left Shoe Considerations: The Stewie Griffin was removed which, if included, more than doubles the left shoe’s weighted average. The highly sought after Fruity Pebbles 4’s are referenced on three different parts, but only counted once
- Right Shoe Considerations: The right shoe references last years What The MVP Lebrons, which by itself has an average DS price of $2,453. The entire Dunkman series is referenced, all of which are GRs, but we’re not using series. Most importantly, the insole of the right shoe has the Lebron “LJ” logo and, really, how do you quantify the entire brand? That’s not our bag, so we’ll just footnote it for you.
- Pair Considerations: The Big Bangs are referenced on both shoes. And, we haven’t even scratched the surface on total square inches by colorway referenced . . . but that will have to wait until we get our hands on a pair (size 10.5, by the way, now accepting oops) to take precise measurements with a 3-D scanner or something
Ok, so maybe we’ve only fanned the fire on the eternal flame that is the left vs. right shoe argument, and have done little to solve it. But wasn’t that fun? Can’t wait to do it again with the What The Jordan 11’s. Oh, you didn’t know there’s a “What The” Jordan coming? I guess you should get your release info from somewhere more reliable . . . we only serve data here.
In the meantime we’re gonna go eat some mini-ice cream Twix.
