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is Shooting for the Stars with his
Latest Jordan Brand Design
Chris
Matthews
As a kid growing up in Washington, DC., Matthews was always heavily drawn to the game of basketball. “A lot of people see me shooting online, but they don’t know that I’ve been doing that since I was 5 years old,” Matthews says, adding that he used to make anywhere from 500 to 700 shots per day. Not only was basketball a source of love and passion for the then-aspiring athlete, it also provided him with a safe outlet as a kid growing up in the height of Washington D.C’s 1990s drug epidemic. They say ‘ball is life,’ but for a young Chris Matthews who found himself having to navigate a tough world where the odds are stacked against you, basketball did indeed become life.
“A lot of people see me shooting online, but they don’t know that I’ve been doing that since I was 5 years old.”
CHRIS MATTHEWS
BASKETBALL CREATOR
You may know Chris Matthews aka Lethal Shooter, but do you really know the man behind the myth, the legend, and the insane jump shots? Success, particularly in this age of social media, can be a bit misleading—you see a person’s breakthrough, the quick ascensions within their respective fields along with the large followings and think they’ve ‘come out of nowhere.’ Not the case with Matthews—a sought-after shooting coach and trainer who currently counts Jordan Brand, Nike, and Red Bull as partners, and a client list that includes Jaylen Brown, Anthony Davis, Jennifer Hudson, Drake and Bad Bunny amongst plenty of other big names.
We recently hung out on Zoom with the big-time trainer and basketball content creator (Matthews currently has a following of 2.6 million on Instagram) on the heels of his new Jordan PE collaboration (and his second shoe with the brand as a whole) with Luka Dončić. Named “The Sky’s the Limit,” the creation of this shoe has been months in the making. “The Nike team did a good job of understanding that I wanted the shoe to be very youthful. I pray that I get a third, fourth, and fifth shoe, but if I don’t, this shoe is something you can wear for years,” Matthews says proudly of his work with Luka and the Jordan team.
With a revolving door of big-time opportunities, many make the mistake in thinking the road to success has been easy for Lethal Shooter, but to understand his present-day, you must first backtrack to the early chapters. As the 38-year-old Matthews will tell you himself—to know him now is to know the previous versions of him. He’s also the first to tell you that his life hasn’t been easy.
By: Jael Rucker
Images courtesy of Jordan Brand and Red Bull
From the Nation’s Capital to the World
Matthews’ graduated from National Christian Academy in nearby Fort Washington, MD and eventually played at two Division 1 college programs—first Washington State and then St. Bonaventure, where he became the program’s single-season three-point record holder. Despite the landmarks and being one of the best long-range shooters in the nation, Matthews was not drafted by an NBA team. “I never made it to the NBA. I’ve never worn an NBA jersey and I’ve never cashed an NBA check as a player,” Matthews notes. After not getting drafted, the young athlete had some stints playing abroad, but his professional career ended when he suffered from a collapsed lung in 2016.
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"It’s been a lot of adversity, pain, failure, and figuring out ways to try and make it out of situations where you’re drowning,” he explains, adding: “Trying to figure out the next step in my life was the toughest part—especially when my dad died in front of me (his father passed away in his arms back in 2015), and I was going through all these situations that can just make somebody go into full depression.” Through the “pockets of depression,” as Matthews calls it, he eventually realized that his true calling was in the form of training and content creation.
Getting slightly emotional as he speaks, the reflection goes on: “I already look up to Luka because of what he brings to the game of basketball and his trick shots as well. When they told me he wanted to collaborate, I decided I wanted to go in that direction instead of a second shoe of my own. The reason why we picked 'The Sky's the Limit' is because I never made it to the NBA. This shoe is dedicated to all the kids around the world to let them know to never give up and keep pushing in life. That’s what my brand is based on. The sky's the limit if you use the gift God gave you to be consistent because you never know what each new day is going to bring. You never know what can happen and that’s my story. The sneaker has all of these cool colors featured because that’s what kids today love. I almost got teary eyed when I saw Luka wearing these in an NBA game for the first time. I’m just a guy from Washington, DC, and it’s not like I knew all of this stuff was going to happen. It’s just so much hard work and so many blessings that have occurred along the way.”
Matthews becoming the first-ever trainer to have their own signature shoe and a collaboration with one of the best NBA players in the world is indeed a rare feat that’s never been seen before. What is it about Lethal Shooter that has made huge entities such as Jordan Brand want to work with him? "Chris represents the modern era of impact in the basketball space, without actually being an NBA player," said Nick DePaula, writer of Boardroom's Sneaker Game Newsletter. "His Lethal Shooter platform has influenced a generation of young players to dream big in hoops and lock in on their skills, and we're seeing brands like Jordan grasp that and activate around product in new and creative ways that's advancing the marketing industry."
This includes Matthews becoming the first human to shoot against an A.I. robot, being the first person to shoot in front of the pyramids in Cairo, Egypt, and training the National Indonesian Women’s Basketball team—opportunities that Red Bull assisted in securing for him. “When I saw the A.I. Robot shooting online, I told Red Bull that I wanted to be the first man to shoot against it. They reached out to the company, and they said they didn’t really want to do it at the time. I told Red Bull to try again because I knew if somebody else did it, people would be asking why it wasn’t Lethal Shooter who got the opportunity to do it,” he recalls, praising Red Bull for being a team that really puts his creativity at the forefront along with his desire to create ‘first ever’ content. Red Bull would go on to make a documentary diving into the trajectory of Matthews’ career. I next ask him about the Cairo opportunity. “That was another dream come true. Growing up you see certain things on TV and think about how you want to shoot in front of that place, but you never believe it’s going to happen. They had me go there at six in the morning—as soon as the sun came up, to be the first person to shoot in front of the pyramids.”
In March, 2023, Matthews was flown out to Indonesia for five days to train the Indonesian National Women's Basketball team before their appearance in the South East Asian (SEA) Games, accepting the assignment as a tribute to the late Kobe Bryant as he noticed Bryant often traveled to Asia to help build and spread basketball culture. “That was a really big moment in my life because I’m really passionate about women’s basketball. To help the Indonesian team was a dream come true because those women will work as hard as you tell them to.” He adds, of the 2023 SEA gold medalists: “Seeing them work that hard made me really committed to help get them to the next level, and I upped my training to give them 200 percent. It paid off because that was the first time in the nation’s history that they won gold. I’m not from Indonesia, but to be able to take part in something like that to show that my training can help a country in a small way to win gold—that’s a dream come true.”
Lethal Shooter and the Jordan Brand
Nick DePaula
“Chris represents the modern era of impact in the basketball space, without actually being an NBA player.”
In a career full of unorthodox checkmarks like training the most elite names in professional basketball and Hollywood, the latest addition to the ever-growing resume of Lethal Shooter is this second Jordan PE shoe in collaboration with the high-scoring Dončić, which expands upon Matthews becoming the only NBA trainer to have his very own Jordan shoe in 2022. At this point in our conversation, Matthews picks up the sneaker and rotates it 360 degrees so that I can see every single detail. While he’s pointing out the different layers to the shoe he dives in: “Nike sent me pictures of when it was being made, and they mailed me a sample shoe. When they send the sample shoes, you can tell them what you like, and don’t like, and then they will make those changes.”
Talking more about the beginning stages of the sneaker he continues: “You know how the old Jordans used to have padded leather? I made sure the leather was nice and glistening. I wanted this to be a shoe that years from now I can potentially still throw on or gift to somebody to play in a game. I love my first shoe, but this shoe right here is a really awesome shoe.”
While Matthews stops the comparisons between “The Sky’s the Limit” and his first Jordan P.E. right there, it’s clear the former holds a special place in his heart for what it represents. “I’ve been helping Nike and Jordan Brand for over six years now. I’ve put in a lot of training, work, and commitment into what I do. About four years ago, Nike came to me and said they wanted to give me my own PE which came out roughly two years ago. That was a dream come true. Then Nike said they wanted to give me a second PE because they appreciated my commitment and work, offering me a collaboration with Luka. I said absolutely because Luka is a future Hall of Famer, and one of the best basketball players of all time already.”
It was just two years ago that Jordan Brand gave him a shoe, and now he has a collaboration with Luka along with plenty of other opportunities on the horizon. Chris Matthews is without a doubt living the American basketball dream, and there’s not a second of it that he takes for granted. His advice for anybody looking to follow in his footsteps? To make sure that the people around you have your best intentions. “Have people around that believe in you because there’s a lot of people that hang around folks with bad energy around them. Make sure you’ve got people around you that are positive and don’t pull you down.”
Stay Positive
