adidas D Rose 10 Performance Review

Ten years of signature shoes for Derrick Rose and adidas Hoops. Is the adidas D Rose 10 the best one yet?

The traction featured on the D Rose 10 are two of my favorite patterns — herringbone and radial patterns just tend to grip the best more often than not. However, the patterns used here are so tightly spaced that even the smallest amount of dust will accumulate and cause a noticeable lack of bite throughout gameplay. A quick wipe and all should be free and clear for a brief period of time, but if your court conditions are less than ideal then you may end up with some really lackluster grip.

 

Obviously, the cleaner the court the better the grip applies to almost every shoe, but it’s emphasized with the D Rose 10.

Cushion is Bounce once again, and it’s not as plush as it was on last years D Rose 9.

 

This version of Bounce gives off a slight budget-friendly feel to the shoe versus a premium feeling cushion worthy of the $140 retail price. But, and there’s always a but, you still maintain a good amount of court feel with some cushion under-foot. I just found it to be strange that every pair of my $105-115 pair of Dames with Bounce cushion have felt awesome under-foot and the D Rose 10 did not live up to my previous experiences.

 

Materials are vastly different than last years D Rose 9 as the pleated textile was replaced with full grain leather. This made for a really premium feeing shoe straight out the box along with a fairly fast break-in period.

 

This setup does stretch a bit more than I’d have liked once they were broken in, which caused me to constantly have to adjust my laces for a tighter fit, but some may end up enjoying this — such as wide footers.

 

This makes me think that the leather isn’t the best cut or style of leather, I may be wrong, as I’ve not had this much stretching of leather in quite some time. Although, it could have been due to the one-piece leather build instead of additional overlays adding some extra structure and support.

I was forced to go down 1/2 size due to all other sizes being sold out, but I’m happy that I had to since the shoe fits long… and the leather stretching thing too.

 

Wide footers may be okay going true to size, but those that aren’t extremely wide footed may be okay going down 1/2 sz once the shoe has broken-in.

 

Lockdown suffered a bit due to the material stretching, but it could’ve been much worse… adidas harden vol 4, I’m looking at you. Luckily the rear TPU heel counter holds you onto the footbed and extends toward the midfoot. I do wish the midsole cradled or cupped the foot in the forefoot as I feel it would’ve made the material stretch less noticeable, but perhaps that’s something they can improve upon in the next model.

Support is pretty average. Not bad by any means, but not over abundant either. Just enough is in place to keep you safe and secure while playing. The midsole has enough torsion support while the forefoot is exaggerated enough to act as an outrigger first lateral stability.
Mom Overall, the adidas D Rose 10 is much better than the previous model. They’re not quite as amazing as the D Rose 6 PK were, but they’re as nice as the early models the shoe is supposed to pay homage to. If you’re a D Rose fan and wanted to keep your collection going then these will likely make you happy. If you’re looking for the best bang for your buck then there are many other models in 2019 that will provide that for you.