Adidas Unveils New 'Never Break' Tagline for Derrick Rose Apparel

Well, you can't say Adidas isn't addressing a concern.

The sports brand has a big problem with its Derrick Rose Signature Collection. Most notably, people are afraid to wear the shoes.

It's a chicken-or-the-egg issue that's risen out of Rose's injury-plagued seasons in the NBA. Whether or not it's sane to think Rose's shoes actually have anything to do with his injuries isn't really the issue. The issue is that people perceive that they do.

As long as Rose is associated with the shoe, there will be injury jokes and concerns. Some brands would opt to ignore the negative sentiments about their client. Adidas will not.

Rather, Adidas seems to have taken a note from Nike's "Rise" campaign and is approaching Rose's lowlights head-on. ESPN's Darren Rovell tweeted out a picture of the company's new slogan for the D Rose Signature Collection: "Never Break."

So.

Obviously, there's something deeper to this than Adidas feeding the trolls with the ultimate in ironic taglines. It's probably meant to make a distinction between "injured" and "broken," which is a nice message to convey.

Nonetheless, your first impression of this slogan will be, "Lol. D-Rose softer than Jaden Smith's toilet paper"—because that is how you've been trained to respond. Adidas has merely adopted Rose's injuries. You are an NBA fan. You were born in Rose's injuries. Molded by them.

In any case, if you're looking for another Rose "comeback" campaign this fall, you won't find it. There are no more comebacks, just the idea that there are some parts of you that can't break without your permission.

Dan is on Twitter. If we're lucky, the only Chicago icon breaking anything this week is Mike Ditka. And that was mostly wind. Mostly.