Maybe, however it’s still likely marginal they aren’t running a marathon and overall the additional protection from injury likely outweighs any impact on perfor

Maybe, however it’s still likely marginal they aren’t running a marathon and overall the additional protection from injury likely outweighs any impact on performance. One can make this argument about boxing too, gloves are heavy and and also cause more long term concussion related injuries because they allow you to hit harder however in the short term a boxer can have far more matches because they don’t risk breaking their hands as much as in bare knuckles or wrapped knuckles boxing. Athletics at this point is so well researched that if different shoes would be better they would’ve changed them already. There are no specific regulations for court shoes in basketball as far as I can tell. If low top shoes would be better some team somewhere would’ve tried to use them and if they indeed presented an advantage everyone would’ve adopted them by now.