He had no shoes to fill, no footsteps to follow. Maybe that's why owning his own Pro-Keds became so important, why as an adult he would fill his closet with immaculate pairs of wearable art.
Milt Newton, general manager of the Timberwolves, grew up in the Virgin Islands. He owned one pair of what the kids called "bobos" — cheap, all-purpose shoes he wore to church, school, work and on his daily trek to the island's basketball courts.
Even as he dribbled the orange right off the one, cheap basketball he owned, Newton as a grade schooler coveted a pair of white Pro-Keds, "the best basketball shoes you could buy back then," he said.