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The Miami Heat power forward is partnering with eBay and the charity Soles4Souls to give the public a shot at 50 pieces from his personal collection.

P. J. Tucker loves sneakers. Like, at the "you think you love sneakers but you don't know the half of it and this man is proof" level of sneaker love. As an NBA star, currently serving as power forward for the Miami Heat, he's in a unique position to acquire some of the most coveted kicks on the planet without having to lift a finger. And yet, Tucker has developed a network of Sherlock Holmes-esque sneaker irregulars—boots-on-the-ground insiders—who can help him get his hands on the most hard-to-get shoes, even if that requires a lot of time, effort, and (let's be real here) money.

This isn't exactly news. How can someone who owns an actual sneaker house—yes, a home just for sneakers—escape notice? They cannot. But I'm telling you about the lengths that Tucker is willing to go to for the coolest shoes on the planet for a good reason. Today, as part of his ongoing partnership with eBay and in tandem with charitable organization Soles4Souls, Tucker is giving the public a shot at those hard-earned sneakers by putting 50 pairs from his own collection up for sale. Highlights include player-exclusive LeBron 7s, old-school bangers like the Heinken Dunk Low, and new school standouts like the Nike x Comme des Garçons Homme Plus Air Foamposite One.

The festivities (read: inevitable digital slugfest) kick off at 6 a.m. ET today. But before the scrum, Tucker jumped on the phone with me to talk about his philosophy on collecting, his feelings on footwear infamy, and why, at the end of the day, this might be all his mom's—and Michael Jordan's—fault.

Read on for a lightly edited and condensed version of our conversation.

Esquire: How do you feel about being the NBA’s unrivaled sneakerhead?

P.J.T: I don’t necessarily feel any sort of way about it. It’s just something that people came up with a few years back, and it just sort of caught fire. People, from all the stuff that I wear, talk about it. It’s more of that than anything. I would never call myself that. I think it’s silly. But it’s fun, and it’s funny, to hear people every day, everywhere I go, say that. Continuously. All day. Every day.

Esquire: But you are pretty dedicated when it comes to tracking down shoes.

P.J.T: I don’t feel like it’s a dedicated type of situation. It’s more my life, right? It’s what I do. I wake up and I’ve got emails and text messages from people trying to buy, sell, trying to trade, trying to do stuff with shoes. It’s been a part of my life and it’s been the fabric of P. J. for so long that it’s not even something that I even physically think about doing. It’s just me.

Esquire: What was it that first got you into sneakers?

P.J.T: Just playing basketball. My own life. It just went hand in hand. As a kid, my first pair of shoes was “Chicago” Jordan 1s. It was just me. [Laughs] Between my mom and god, it was just like, “Yeah, he’s gonna play basketball and he’s gonna love sneakers.” It was just automatic. It’s all I’ve ever known. Especially growing up in the early ‘90s, Michael Jordan was everything. Being from North Carolina, Carolina was like going to the League for me. That was my biggest dream, to be one of those guys and do that and wear the uniform and the sneakers to match. It was just a thing…waiting in the morning for sneakers so I can wear ‘em to school that day. It was the fabric of P. J. Just what I did.

Esquire: Kicking off with a pair of “Chicago” Jordan 1s—that lays a baseline, man.

P.J.T: I said that to my mom. She used to get mad when I was in high school, and I’m like, “This is your fault! You built this. You can’t be mad now that my shoes are 200 bucks.” [Laughs]

Esquire: Parting with pieces from your collection isn’t the easiest thing, so how did you decide on what you wanted to get rid of and what you thought was the coolest shit you wanted to put out there?

P.J.T: So, it was a little process, I’m not gonna lie. It was tougher than I thought it was gonna be, in a sense—but in a sense, it was a lot easier than I thought it was gonna be because a lot of stuff was left back in Milwaukee, was left back in Houston when I did all these moves this past season. So it was weeding through the game-worn stuff that I already wore, new game-worn stuff that I already wore, my [player-exclusive] stuff that I already wore, and a couple new pairs thrown in there. Stuff that just didn’t make the cut that didn’t make the cut to come to Miami, but some of it should have and didn’t, so it’s just kind of a mix of everything to try to literally weed through everything. And then not being there to go through the stuff, right? Literally being on Zoom, FaceTime, having my assistant lay them out on the floor in my shoe house and try to figure it out, it took a little time, to say the least. It took a little time, but I think we covered all the bases with the variety of stuff that’s in it.

Esquire: When you’re trying to search for a pair of shoes, how willing are you to invest a lot of time and energy?

P.J.T: It just depends on the shoe. Some shoes deserve that time and effort. If I know there’s only one pair of 14s out there, or if I know exactly how hard it’s going to be to get them, a lot of those times I have to use a lot of different resources and do a lot of different things to be able to get them. Sometimes it’s absolutely worth that time and effort, and I’ll give that time and effort for those shoes. If I really like ‘em? Most definitely, that’s something that happens, for sure.

Esquire: And you’re not inside of the easy-to-acquire size range, right? Obviously there are fewer size 14s out there, but there are also fewer guys trying to get them.

P.J.T: Right. So it definitely makes it tougher, but a lot of times it makes it easier to be able to go to the places I need to go, knowing that they’re going to have them. Just over the years, I’ve figured it out. And it’s made it a little easier now to track down what I’m trying to track down—the ones I’ve got to buy and really go find. Like if I don’t have a relationship with the people who made ‘em.

Esquire: Do you any nemeses out there who are trying to snatch up your pairs?

P.J.T: Like that pair? Yeah. There are a few guys out there who if I don’t get ‘em, they’re usually right there trying to get ‘em. And most of them are regular guys that I’ve known over the years that have pretty sick shoe collections as well. But for those ones? It’s always the same few guys.

Esquire: So you’re actually in contact with these guys?

P.J.T: Oh, yeah. For sure. I know some of them personally.

Esquire: They’re just normal guys, right? They must kinda love knowing they’re trying to outbid you.

P.J.T: I mean, it’s like love-hate, right? Because they really want them just as bad as I do. So if I get them and they don’t…It’s like, “Ah, yeah, you got them.” But I’m sure once they step away for a second, they’re like, hot. Like, “You know what, P. J.? Seriously?”