Bio

My name is Robert Ljuba, and I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area where I was brought up by my two grandparents (Ivica and Liesel) who immigrated here from Europe, and my Mother and Father. Growing up in the diverse culture this area holds, I was exposed to many potential interests growing up...

Throughout junior high and high school Nike SB footwear had my focus and feet occupied, but this infatuation would only be temporary. Acquiring my drivers license and dabbling with cars would soon replace my passion for collecting sneakers as I sold my entire collection to build my first car (Nissan S13). Now my passions are split between building cars with friends and hunting for older 99X series New Balance shoes.

The USA/UK made masterpieces that New Balance produces along with their collaborators are a sight to see and a comfort to feel. It is hard to keep up with all of the new releases, and that is why I narrowed down a majority of my collection to strictly 99X.

In the midst of supporting this brand, I've been lead to meet great people through social media who support one another and help each other locate rare pairs. After collecting for some years, I was introduced to a group of NB enthusiasts that was built on the shared interest of NB footwear, but is now structured on a strong friendship amongst members. The name of this group is TeamNB.   

Who is TeamNB?

"It all began with the Fingercroxx/NB 580 release where the avid NB collectors in the Nike Talk (NT) thread would share info and release dates so everyone for the most part could eat and get their pairs. There was a restock on the Fingercroxx and info was shared in NT and somehow they were sold out instantly before anyone really got a chance to grab them, and lurkers that never contributed anything to the thread would come in and brag about how they got these pairs and thanks for the info, then ask if we wanted to buy at resell price that was always jacked way up for maximum profit on their part. So as a whole we started talking about forming a group/team to avoid this kind of activity from happening where our info wouldn't leak into lurker's hands.

We started talking about names (kinda like Team AMFam and Team Roshe), I then developed a logo for us. We then drafted a basic Team NB application that people would post onto NT, and people would vote for them to be on the team. We made it for the first 20 people and that's how we started the team. The problem with having it on NT was that there was no privacy to keep our info from the lurkers so we then decided to make it a Facebook group instead.

We have high standards for people that join our team, we have an updated application, and after 2 years we have formed a brotherhood of sorts. It goes beyond shoes now, which is why we have those high standards and are extremely picky with who we let in our circle. We have also flushed out members that didn't fit in with how we do things as well as in-actives. We are now 40 members worldwide with 35k+ followers on Instagram."

Written by: Dennis L. (founder)

Team Statistics: 
-Instagram: @teamnb 
-39 members
-1500+ pairs combined
-150+ years combined collecting NB