Nike Court Legacy review

Make your wardrobe happy with this mix-and-match gem if you're looking for:

• A lightweight and flexible pair to walk around town for hours on end.
• An affordable classic full of clean heritage details.
• A super versatile sneaker style and occasion-wise.

If you suffer from any foot conditions, we strongly advise you to go for a different shoe. The Nike Court Legacy doesn't have a midsole, and it lacks the arch support you might need. There are other brands that have sneakers that focus more on support, such as New Balance.

If you're looking for a super comfortable and durable pair with the same aesthetics, the Vans Old Skool might just be your cup of tea! If you came here looking for a leather shoe, don't worry, we got you covered! The Adidas Superstar is another icon with a clean and timeless look that effortlessly matches lots of outfits.

Just in case you want to keep it low-budget and these recommendations aren't right up your alley, we believe you should have a look at our most affordable sneakers.

With its below-average stack height and absence of cushioning foam, there is hardly any buffer between your foot and the floor in the Nike Court Legacy.

This is reflected in the shoe's very low shock absorption measurement of 43 SA. The impact protection is very minimal in this kick.

The Court Legacy also feels very flat and dull underfoot, with a below-average energy return of 43%. For context, it's not as responsive as the equally minimal Adidas Samba with its 58% return.

At 19.6 mm, this shoe's heel stack is way lower than average.

This translates into a better ground feel, which increases the stability levels of this Nike pair overall. After all, it doesn't actually have a midsole, which makes a huge difference regarding heel stack!

The forefoot stack is also lower than average at 13.0 mm.

Once we measure both heel and forefoot stacks, we can calculate the drop of a shoe.

Standing at 6.6 mm, it's a whopping 41% lower than average. But don't worry, this is NOT something bad! Heel drop in sneakers is all about personal preferences; there's not a "better" or "worse" drop.

As you can see, this shoe looks really flat on foot, and that's because of the drop. If you want to know more about this, we believe you should have a look at our ultimate drop guide.

As a minimalist tennis shoe with a slim profile, the Nike Court Legacy is expected to have a snug fit.

Measuring the shoe's gel mold with a caliper, we got 88.7 mm in its widest part. This is narrower than the average but still within the medium-width range. Just be prepared for a close-fitting experience.

Surprisingly, the shoe's toebox wasn't much narrower near the big toe. It showed a close-to-average reading of 67.7 mm.

With a toebox height of 26.9 mm, the vertical space of this Nike sneaker is not restrictive either.

We don't think you should have any skidding issues in the Court Legacy on dry asphalt and concrete. But you better be careful on tricky surfaces like stone, wood, and tile, especially wet ones.

The friction score of this Nike shoe (0.31) turned out to be too low to earn our approval for wet conditions. Its outsole lacks the proper traction to make you feel 100% surefooted when walking on wet sidewalks or tiles.

With its vulcanized sole and a black strip running around it, you can easily mistake the Court Legacy for the Chuck 70 Low Top. However, their tread pattern differs as the Court Legacy inherits Nike's retro herringbone setup.

Right to the point: 4.6N. Yes, you read it right. It took as little force as 4.6N to bend the Nike Court Legacy by 30 degres!

Our shoe flexing machine only had it that easy with the Adidas Spezial (at 4.7N). This explains why this shoe felt so forgiving on our feet.

The fact that it doesn't have a midsole helps a lot too. Even though we can't say this shoe is plush, its pliable nature makes it fun and nice to wear.

The sleek appearance of this shoe reflects its weight perfectly. How light it felt on our feet when we walked around town or when we had to run some errands is one of our favorite aspects of the Court Legacy. It's just like a feather!

At 10.1 oz/286.0g, this pair is a wonderful 40% lighter than average. This translates into easy and happy strides, as your feet won't get tired as fast as they would with some heavier sneakers! Trust us, we verify our lab results with our wear tests and vice-versa!

Later on, when we got to the lab, we cut the shoe in half to see what it was hiding. Then we checked the upper, and its lightweight nature became totally clear to us. There's no padding at all!

The fully covered canvas upper of this shoe deceived us at first glance... but no one can fool our smoke machine! We grabbed the Court Legacy and started pumping up smoke, check it out!

The smoke came out pretty easily we'd say. Also, compared to the Nike Blazer Mid 77, which has a similar build if we judge it just by looks, the Court Legacy performed way better! We decided to give it an average result of 3/5 in our breathability test, which is not bad at all!

The material lets our light shine... even if it's just a little bit. We can't say it has ventilation holes, though, as the light doesn't go all the way through. But it's not like the canvas is incredibly thin either! We believe this combination will bring a great mix of breathability and durability.

Our microscope just confirmed it: no ventilation gaps to favor airflow!

Before we move on, it's important to say that in this review we're analyzing the canvas version of the Nike Court Legacy. There's also a leather iteration that would definitely get different scores on our tests. Please, keep that in mind before deciding to buy this shoe!

If you're looking for a leather shoe, then we believe you should have a look at our leather sneakers catalog.

The low profile of the Court Legacy makes it a pretty stable shoe.

If we don't take into account specific stability features, the closer your feet are to the floor when you put on a shoe, the more stable it is! In this case, the absence of a midsole and the thin insole and outsole are clear evidence of such.

We can summarize our experience using just one word: confidence! The close-to-the-ground structure of this shoe made us feel confident in every step, as we felt pretty stable. Additionally, its clean and trendy design that matched most of our wardrobe gave us that self-trust boost that we love so much!

Right in time for the Olympic Games, we might have a new gymnast! The Court Legacy bent as easily in our hands as it did in our feet.

Just look at that! No resistance whatsoever! This allowed our feet to move comfortably, and we could also happily say good-bye to any kind of painful break-in period. Consequently, we gave this shoe a wonderful 1/5 on our torsional rigidity test.

After seeing how pliable this shoe is overall, we did expect its heel counter to match Shannon Miller's flexibility levels. It bent easily alongside our feet. It did not rub us the wrong way or hurt our Achilles, which we always celebrate!

All in all, the Court Legacy got a 1/5 on our heel counter stiffness test, which is the lowest result.

We could already tell this shoe didn't have the widest base. Our caliper didn't even need to stretch before measuring the Court Legacy's midsole width in the forefoot.

At 99.7 mm, it's narrower than average. Nevertheless, we still felt stable and comfortable. A measure that matches this shoe's sleek profile, that is!

The extra narrow heel made sure our feet stayed in place. At 67.7 mm, our caliper stated it's an incredible 19% less wide than average!

We believe these measures match amazingly well with the Court Legacy's clean, simple, and minimalistic vibe.

Even though the Court Legacy's structure reminds us of Converse's sneakers, it doesn't have a rubber layer in the toebox to protect it. To check its durability, we grabbed our Dremel and started drilling our way in.

After 4 seconds of attack at 5K RPM and 3.2N of force, we could see the toebox didn't have a full-on hole. It did have some damage, though; a little bit more than what we'd consider just a scratch.

As you can see in the picture, the tool managed to get to the very final layer at the top of the mess it created. Yet it couldn't make its way through!

We decided to give it a 3/5 in our toebox durability test. As we predicted, the Court Legacy shows a nice combination of average breathability and durability!

Even though the heel is usually the weakest part of a shoe, we make all the pairs that come to our lab go through our heel padding durability test!

When the tool started rolling, we could see some white threads flying around. Which, honestly, scared us a little bit... but when we put the Dremel away, we saw the results weren't that bad!

There's a little bit of a mess back there, yeah. But, as you can see, the heel did pretty well despite being thin and unpadded, so we gave it a 3/5 on our heel padding durability test.

When we grabbed our durometer to check this shoe's outsole hardness and it showed 87.5 HC, we couldn't help but nod.

As we'll see later on, this shoe doesn't have a midsole, which explains why we didn't feel it super soft underfoot. Its outsole is also harder than average, but don't worry, this doesn't mean the shoe is uncomfortable! In fact, we did have a great time walking around town with it.

Our Dremel's last battle against the Court Legacy is about to start, and we can't wait to see it!

This time at 10K RPM and 3.2N of force, the tool was ready to give its all in a duel that lasted 22 seconds. We measured the damages using a tread gauge, and it returned 1.3 mm.

The dent is 23% deeper than average, which caught us by surprise, to be honest. The Court Legacy has a harder-than-average outsole, we did expect a higher level of durability regarding the material used.

There are many things that can only be measured if you cut a shoe in half, and that's exactly what we do here, in RunRepeat! The outsole thickness is just one of them, as we need our caliper to be able to stand right in the outsole limits.

At 5.5 mm, the Court Legacy's outsole has an average thickness. 

Even though the Court Legacy's insole is thinner than average at 3.9 mm, we were pretty grateful it was not thinner than that.

This small piece had to burden the whole weight of the underfoot comfort on its own shoulders. And it did it pretty okay!

Yeah, we can't say it's a plush shoe. But sometimes people tend to associate plushness with comfort, as if it was the only factor that played an important role! During our wear tests, we felt we could walk for hours in this shoe. It might not be the best to explore a new city (walking shoes might work better for that), but you'll definitely be able to show off its trendy style with no problems during a night out with friends.

This shoe has a removable insole, which means you can use your own orthotics if needed.

Nevertheless, after all the tests the Court Legacy has gone through, we do want to give you a couple of warnings:

• Don't forget there's a lot of this shoe's overall comfort levels that depend on the insole! If you go for a thinner one, you might regret it.
• It's not a wide model. You can see it just by looking at it, but remember the forefoot already feels quite tight. If you go for an extra thick insole, your feet might run out of space.

No reflective elements around! Just make sure you walk on well-illuminated roads if you're heading home at night.

The Court Legacy has broken a record in our lab data: it holds the thinnest tongue so far!

At 0.7 mm, our caliper claws look like they're just touching each other. When we saw how minimal this shoe's tongue was, we decided not to tie its laces too tight... no lace bite, please and thank you!

Even though this meant this Nike's tongue would dance around a little bit, we understand the brand's strategy to go minimalist and as lightweight as possible. It looks like the brand was also aware of this, that's why it decided to add a little lace loop to hold the laces in place.

Another wonderful move from Nike!

No heel tab! The clean and minimalist vibe of this shoe goes from the tip to the heel.

We really liked the fact that Nike added a big leather patch with its name right where the heel tab should be. The letters look really clean and it gives the shoe a wonderful final touch!