Nike Giannis Immortality 4 review

Immortalise your hoops with the Giannis Immortality 4 if you're looking for:

• A quick, grippy, and stable hooper that will make you stay in control even during the most daring moves.
• A speedy Nike pair with a design that focuses on stability (it's low-cost but it has a shank!).
• A versatile and affordable shoe that suits every position when you play basketball.

If you're looking forward to playing streetball non-stop, forget about the Giannis Immortality 4. Its outsole won't last as long as you'd want it to, and you'll find yourself buying a new pair of shoes sooner than expected. These are the best models to play outdoors that have come to our lab.

Even though this Nike pair is really versatile and it suits any position, we believe heavy players or big, aggressive centres would be happier with a wider pair that has some extra impact protection. Among our affordable hoopers, we believe the Nike GT Cut Academy and the Adidas Harden Stepback 3 might be 2 of the best choices.

The Renew foam's excellent cushioning properties help to make the Immortality 4 an excellent value for money.

Our lab tests confirmed that the shock absorption it delivers in both the heel (101 SA) and the forefoot (87 SA) measures up to the category average, including the more expensive hoop shoes.

This Nike shoe keeps landings and drives well-cushioned, no matter how long the game lasts.

But don't expect much bounce from the Renew foam as it turned out to be quite dull and muted in the Immortality 4.

With below-average energy return measurements of 51.1% in the heel and 54.5% in the forefoot, there is not much springback in this Nike shoe.

At 30.0 mm according to our calliper, this shoe's heel stack is just average.

The forefoot stack goes up to 24.6 mm, which is higher than average. It offers added protection under the toes and the ball of the foot but detracts from the court feel.

The difference between the shoe's heel and the forefoot stacks is not too high, resulting in a below-average drop of 5.4 mm.

This offset makes the shoe feel pretty flat. Not super flat in the sense that it doesn't have any cushioning, but more like our heel and toes were on the same level.

The Giannis Immortality 4 features a full-length Renew foam for its midsole cushioning.

Even though it's not the softest foam out there, scoring 25.5 HA on our durometer reading, it felt comfortable and stable to us, which are 2 key points too!

Having created a mould of the shoe's interiors with a proprietary gel, we were able to measure its internal dimensions precisely with a calliper.

In the widest part of the mould, our calliper recorded a slightly below-average width of 91.6 mm.

However, it is still within the medium-width range so there is nothing to worry about if you have average-width feet.

The non-pointy shape of this Nike shoe felt accommodating for all five toes. Our calliper measured a standard width of 69.0 mm in the big toe area.

We didn't lack any vertical space in the Giannis Immortality 4 either. It has a decent toebox height of 22.1 mm. 

The Giannis Immortality 4 features an outsole that is very similar to the previous version.

It keeps the same multidirectional pattern with round lines and some gaps in between. It bit well and consistently on every surface, as we tried the shoe on in and outdoor courts.

Even though we had to wipe the dust more than a couple of times (which we always do anyway), the traction the Giannis Immortality 4 offered was fantastic.

A fast and grippy shoe for less than £100? Shut up and take my money!

The Immortality 4 showed a fantastic friction score of 0.74 in our grip test, proving to be on par with the hoop shoes twice its price! Looks like Nike fulfilled its promise of improving the shoe's traction 'to Giannis’ standards.'

The Giannis Immortality 4 features a mix of long and dashed lines that are positioned at different angles for multidirectional traction.

Two large flex grooves (one in the forefoot and one in the heel) set this Nike shoe apart from other hoop shoes. They add flexibility not only longitudinally (forward/back) but also laterally (side-to-side), making the sole more responsive to micromovements of the foot. In turn, this enhances the shoe's bite on he court.

At 20.8N, it takes just as much force to bend the Immortality 4 to a 30-degree angle as it takes an average basketball shoe. This translated into smooth transitions for running up and down the court.

Despite the shoe's high torsional rigidity and heel stiffness, it offered enough give to let our feet flex easily for pivots and fakes. This, plus the court feel, plus the overall lighter weight of the shoe, makes it pretty quick on foot.

During our wear tests, this hooper felt pretty speedy. It let us go for quick cuts and fast breaks in the blink of an eye, which means it didn't drag our feet down when we were playing.

Overall, the on-foot feel was great, especially for those of us with a lively playstyle. We understood it all when we took it to our lab and our scale returned 12.6 oz/356.0g. The Giannis Immortality 4 is lighter than average, and our foot could tell!

We use our light to see if the shoes have any visible ventilation holes throughout their upper.

But... no luck with this one! The light couldn't shine through a single area of this hooper. Still, this doesn't necessarily mean the Giannis Immortality 4 will let your feet choke. Let's see what our smoke machine has to offer.

Well, compared to the Curry 10, which is a beast regarding breathability, this Nike model didn't shine that much. Nevertheless, after a couple of seconds you can see a constant smoke column coming through the base of the tongue. So, great news! Its toebox might not be well-ventilated, but the tongue tries its best to compensate for it.

Our microscope knows this well: the Giannis Immortality 4's tightly woven upper wouldn't let the air get through easily! Consequently, we have decided to give this shoe an standard 3/5 on our breathability test.

Overall, during our wear tests playing basketball in this shoe, we felt confident and safe.

Even though its upper materials are not the toughest ones out there, they didn't let our heel overextend its moves. Nevertheless, to us, it was the midsole width and the sole flares the ones that helped the most regarding stability. We landed safely after shooting and even after grabbing a harsh rebound in traffic!

This Nike pair also features a top-loaded shank in the midfoot. It offers extra support alongside the thickly padded heel counter, collar, and tongue, making this shoe's lockdown absolutely extraordinary.

But that's not all, as this Nike hooper also features an internal double-layered containment system that keeps levelling up our lock-in feel.

The tall midsole of this Nike didn't let our fingers twist it like, at all. So we surrendered and decided to give it a 5/5 in this test.

Its rigid materials offered us a wonderful lock-in feel. If we follow our experience and compare this shoe to its previous version, there's no doubt this one offers better foot containment. This translates into our feet feeling safer and, at the same time, that translates into us trying more daring moves during our wear tests!

The heel understood the assignment, as it was impossible for us to bend it.

Exactly, that just looks like another 5/5 in stiffness! The Giannis Immortality 4's super thick heel counter is a wall that won't cooperate, so our thumb had to give up on trying to make it bow.

Time for our calliper to make an announcement: we have a new record among hoopers!

At 124.5 mm, the Giannis Immortality 4 has the widest midsole in the forefoot we've seen so far in our lab. This means our feet had a spacious platform to step on, and even the most aggressive jumps (like when you hit someone mid-air getting a rebound) found happy landings.

The heel didn't get to break any records, but it's still way wider than average.

At 97.3 mm, it's a whole 7% wider than the typical result for basketball shoes. This offered us plenty of room to stabilise ourselves after landing.

We did expect an average durability after our breathability test, and turns out we were just right!

We always put our Dremel on the same spot and, this time, it didn't catch the rubberized protection the Giannis Immortality 4 has surrounding the toe area. At 5K RPM and with 3.2N of force, the tool left the material messed up, but nothing too bad.

As the Dremel couldn't break the upper completely, we decided to give this Nike pair a 3/5 on our toebox durability test.

We were pretty happy with the results this shoe had shown us so far, but when we started our heel padding durability test, we couldn't keep our mouths closed!

As you can see, our Dremel test wasn't more than a tickling game for the Giannis Immortality 4. Its heel showed us its nerves of steel ending up unharmed. With such a clean result, how could we ever give it any less than a 5/5?

Our durometer returned 86.1 HC when we measured this Nike's outsole hardness.

This result is higher than average, indicating the rubber might focus on being durable, and not so much on being grippy. But in RunRepeat we don't just make assumptions, we test the shoes to their bones!

So, to see if the outsole hardness matched its durability, we grabbed our Dremel once again.

The tool drilled the rubber at 10K RPM this time, but with the same 3.2N of force. We could see white dust flying all over our lab, which is bad news!

Yep, we were right. Our tread gauge measured the dent at 1.5 mm, which is a scary 33% deeper than average. This means this Nike's outsole is not on the durable side. Consequently, we would advise you to check our streetball pairs if you want to play outdoors and leave the Giannis Immortality 4 for your indoor games.

Despite the lack of durability of its rubber, it's not like this Nike has a very thick outsole.

Our calliper returned 4.0 mm, which is just average. So, even if after our warnings you still want to wear this hooper to play ball outdoors on harsh courts, please keep in mind that its outsole will wear out way sooner than expected.

Nike decided to go for a standard insole in this shoe. At 4.4 mm, there's nothing special to say about it. It does its bit to the overall comfort of the Giannis Immortality 4, and that's it.

The Giannis Immortality 4 has a removable insole.

This means that you can change it (if you want or need to) and use your own orthotics.

There are no reflective elements in this economic hooper, exactly as we expected and hand in hand with the previous iterations.

We were pleasantly surprised to discover the smart placing of the padding in the overall design of this Nike pair.

Regarding the tongue, our calliper returned 8.2 mm. As you can see in the picture, it's all located at the top, which is where we tie the laces. This prevented any lace bite, which is always great news.

Even though the Giannis Immortality 4 doesn't feature that extra eyelet at the top that we love, its extended heel and padded collar offer enough support to make up for it.

To level up even more an already high foot containment, the Giannis Immortality 4 comes in with a semi-gusseted tongue on both sides. Come on, who'd believe this is a budget shoe?

The Giannis Immortality line focuses on being affordable. Its low-cost self keeps the same design version after version, adding minor upgrades. Taking into account all the advantages we've found this shoe offers, we can confidently say it offers wonderful value for money.

This hooper doesn't have any kind of finger loop, but it features a very practical extended heel. It helps to put on the shoe, and it also offers great support in the Achilles area.