Being one of soccer’s central figures of our time, Lionel Messi has earned the love and respect of other non-soccer elite athletes. Patrick Mahomes shared a warm hug with the 2022 World Champion before Inter Miami beat Sporting KC in an MLS tie. LeBron James and Serena Williams rushed to watch Messi’s Miami debut. But the biggest tribute for the Herons skipper did not come from elsewhere. It came from fellow Argentinian and former San Antonio Spurs point guard Nicolas Laprovittola.

Laprovittola had famously gone bonkers after Leo Messi brought a FIFA World Cup to Argentina after 36 years in 2022. Now, the ex-Spurs star from the 2016 season is taking Messi’s World Cup win to all basketball courts he graces. Besides, the Argentine’s homage to Messi has a Kobe Bryant connection to it.

Laprovittola flaunts a Lionel Messi sneaker in a rare tribute

Nicolas Laprovittola now plays for Barcelona’s basketball team in the Liga ACB. Notably, it is the same franchise’s soccer team that saw Lionel Messi become the legend he is today. Anyway, during Barcelona’s recent Liga ACB game, Laprovittola wore limited-edition Nike sneakers. Unlike other basketball stars who have their names on a signature shoe, Laprovittola had a graphic of Messi’s World Cup win emblazoned on the shoe. Next to Nike’s golden swoosh, we could see the iconic image of Leo Messi kissing his first-ever World Cup trophy. Adding color to the homage, the shoe comes in the Argentina flag’s blue and white colors, as compiled by TN.Com.ar.

Interestingly, Laprovittola’s Messi sneakers come under Nike’s Kobe Bryant line of shoes. The former Spurs PG’s sneakers come with the famous Black Mamba logo, reminiscent of the late Lakers legend. Besides all this, the sneaker also has three golden stars on its rear, in a nod to Argentina’s three FIFA World Cup trophies. Anyhow, the basketball star having a Messi sneaker is no surprise, considering the ecstatic way in which he celebrated the 8x Ballon d’Or winner’s World Cup crowning.

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When Laprovittola went mad over Messi’s World Cup triumph

Back in 2022, Nicolas Laprovittola showcased on Instagram how he watched the Argentina-France World Cup final from the Barcelona team’s dressing room. In his posts, he could be seen writing down each and every goal scored on the dressing room wall, as if it was a scoreboard. When Gonzalo Montiel scored the decisive penalty and Lionel Messi kneeled in triumphant glory, Laprovittola ran around the dressing room, joyously screaming.

Thereafter, he posted a photo of the Argentine team with the World Cup on his feed. “Absolute happiness! No one will ever understand us,” he captioned his Instagram post. Yes, it might be difficult, at least for some basketball fans to understand a player having a soccer star on their shoe. But for an Argentine, it is close to impossible to not cherish La Pulga and his World Cup coronation.