P.J. Tucker Reveals Best Team He’s Played With, One-of-a-Kind Shoe Collection, Raid Campaign | Exclusive Interview

Los Angeles Clippers forward P.J. Tucker doesn’t have the easiest role.

He’s about to enter his 19th professional season in basketball, and he’s always been called upon to be a defensive stopper for his teams, the ultimate glue guy that won an NBA championship with the Milwaukee Bucks. 

But, behind his profession is one of the coolest passions – and collections – in the NBA. Tucker has over 5,000 pairs of shoes, once wearing 37 different pairs over an 18-game stretch in his career. 

Defender. 3-and-D specialist. Sneaker wearer, but not collector. 

Tucker, the player with the most arguably the most extensive shoe assembly in the NBA, told me in an exclusive interview with FanSided just that. He wears sneakers, but doesn’t collect them, in his opinion.

“I don’t even consider myself a collector,” Tucker said. “I'm more of a sneaker just wearer. I don’t collect ‘em, I just wear ‘em. And it's just the best something I've done my whole life, naturally, playing basketball. I’ve just always been into the shoes that I wore playing basketball. That kind of translated into all this.” 

“This” is the amazing shoe closet that Tucker has, and where he took our call from for this interview and his partnership with Raid. 

“Raid found out that 60% of Americans kill bugs with their shoes and who wants to do that?” Tucker said. “I don't wanna waste my nice shoes on bugs and getting stuff all over them. So, they came up with the app where you can go on, you can scan the shoe code and you can save on Raid through the app. So, it's pretty dope.” 

When it comes to his favorite shoe, Tucker said that the Kobe 4 takes the cake.

“It checks every box,” Tucker said. 

But that’s not the only shoe he wears for games. Tucker shared that he’s been recently wearing Phoenix Suns star Devin Booker’s new shoe, and that sometimes on road trips he could end up bringing anywhere between 24 and 36 pairs depending on the length of the road trip. 

“Usually if it's a game or two, I'll take a bag that takes about probably eight to 12 pairs,” Tucker said. “But if it's a long trip and it's five or six or seven games, then I'll take my big bag and it's like 24 pair in a big bag. So I can be able to mix it up and then, that's the bag the team takes and I'll take my own personal bag. So, usually between 24 to 36 pairs on a road trip.” 

Night in and night out, Tucker – and his shoes – are in the spotlight when he’s on an NBA court, even though he’s not usually the guy leading his team in scoring.

Instead, he’s given the toughest task in the NBA: guarding superstars like Kevin Durabt, Kyrie Irving, LeBron James, Anthony Edwards and many others night in and night out. 

“It's a lot of mental homework,” Tucker said. “It's a mind frame. It's mindset being able to go out every night knowing somebody is attacking you every play. You gotta learn the plays, you gotta know where, where they're trending, how they're playing. Is he shooting, walk-up 3s on the left side, the right side? Is he getting downhill, going to his right? Is he finishing better – which way is he finishing better? 

“There's a lot of little things that you try to learn before these matchups and doing these things,” Tucker continued. But in the game it’s split second decisions and having to make those kind of decisions and in the communications throughout that. It's tough. It's really hard. It's something I get up for.

“And it's something that keeps me going to this day, being able to have those matchups and be that guy to do kind of the dirty work in the game. So, I put my hat on and that's why I love doing it.”

During his career, Tucker has played on some elite teams – obviously the championship team in Milwaukee – including the Houston Rockets during their runs to the Western Conference Finals with James Harden, the Philadelphia 76ers and the Miami Heat. 

While winning the championship is something Tucker will never forget, he did share something about his Houston stint that was special to him. 

“I would say the first, my first year in Houston was my favorite season,” Tucker said. “And my favorite team. We just, all the guys on that team, we just meshed so well. I've never been on a team that the whole team hung out as much as we did. In our free time, we were together. It was a bunch of guys that were friends. And it was a bunch of like previous relationships with different guys like it just was the perfect storm.

“And that year was super fun. So I have to say that I think it was [2017-18] Rockets. That was a special team.”

Those Houston squads were unable to get past the Golden State Warriors dynasty with Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, so Tucker’s championship moment had to wait until the 2020-21 season.

The Bucks made a move for Tucker at the deadline, adding the elite 3-and-D threat to a rotation that already featured Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton. 

Tucker played 29.6 minutes per game in the Bucks’ postseason run, averaging 4.3 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.0 steal per game. A career 40.4 percent 3-point shooter in the playoffs, Tucker was a perfect midseason acquisition for Milwaukee. 

And, he finally was able to get over the hump and capture a title, something he had waited to accomplish for a long time. 

“It was everything,” Tucker said of finally winning an NBA championship. “We had so many, you know, at least two where we really felt like we could have won it in Houston.”

Tucker mentioned that the Rockets really felt like they could win it all in the 2017-18 season before Chris Paul went down to a hamstring injury, helping Golden State close out the series. But that didn’t stop him from fighting. 

“Then getting the opportunity in Milwaukee right afterwards and being able to finally do it – to get that monkey off my back was unreal, man,” Tucker said. “It was so fun – something that you've been chasing for a long time to finally reach that mountain top. It was everything and the tough part about it is once you do it, all it does is make it worse because you just want to feel it. You just want to do it again and again and again, every single season. So, that's what you keep striving for.”

And even though Tucker is a self-described sneaker wearer, the shoes that he wore in the clinching Game 6 of the 2021 NBA Finals – Kobe 6’s from his Yeezy Colorway pack – likely won’t be worn ever again. 

“I still have those shoes,” Tucker said. “I've not worn those shoes again. Once I retire, I’ll probably do something with them. But, that pair of shoes is still my favorite shoe of that year and one of my favorite shoes that I've worn throughout my career. So, it's pretty cool to still have them.”

For more of my conversation with P.J. Tucker, make sure to check out the YouTube link above. We also talked about some of the toughest players to guard, including a veteran and a young player that some fans may not expect to be a tough assignment. 

And, if you want to stop using your shoes to stop bugs, simply visit RaidShoeSaver.com now through October 1, scan your shoe tag and turn your shoe size into savings on Raid Ant & Roach Killer 26. The smaller your shoe size, the bigger the discount - because smaller shoes mean less surface area to kill bugs, meaning you need Raid even more!