PUMA Puts LaMelo’s Asterisk on a Gray MB.06 and Calls It the Hills

PUMA has the MB.06 back on the calendar in Cool Mid Gray with Lime Smash accents, under a name, Hills, that the brand does not bother to explain. LaMelo Ball’s asterisk sits at the center of the design, which is the one thing that has carried across every shoe in his line. Orders open October 16. Six shoes in, the question is no longer whether PUMA can build Ball a signature shoe. It is how many versions of the same one the brand can sell at the same time.

The MB line is PUMA’s volume play in basketball, and the shape of that play is visible on the brand’s own site right now. The MB.05 Lo Team is still listed as a current shoe. The MB.06 is listed in more than one makeup. Tyrese Haliburton’s Hali 1 sits alongside them as the second named signature, and the All-Pro NITRO 2 sits above all of it in three colorways as the team shoe. That is four active basketball families running at once, and the MB line is the one doing the heavy lifting.

Six numbered models deep, the MB has stopped behaving like a signature shoe and started behaving like a category. A hero signature gets one release, one campaign and a sellout. The MB gets multiple makeups, a grade school size run alongside the adult one, a lower-priced team version of the previous model kept on the shelf, and no particular ceremony around any single pair. That is the structure the long-running basketball franchises have used for years, and PUMA has now built it around a player whose asterisk is simple enough to stamp on a tongue, a heel and an outsole without being redrawn each time.

The MB.06 itself is built on a drop-in midsole, which is the construction where the foam unit sits inside the shoe rather than being bonded under it. PUMA’s pitch for it is proximity to the floor, and the practical effect is that the brand can change the cushioning inside a carrier it has already tooled. That is a manufacturing decision as much as a performance one, and it is a large part of why a signature line can produce this many makeups this quickly.

The Hills runs a 52 percent synthetic and 48 percent textile upper in gray, with lime on the Formstrip and the outsole. A TPU sidewall wraps the lateral side for containment, the collar is cut low with what PUMA calls a dynamic lacing system, and the outsole is high-abrasion rubber with a multi-directional pattern. PUMA also lists iridescent details, which read in the product photography as a shift across the upper panels rather than a separate applied trim.

Worth noting what the pictures show against what the copy says. PUMA sells this as a performance basketball shoe and the spec sheet backs that up, but the two model frames in the set put it on a player in shorts and a graphic tee, not in a game. That is the honest position of most signature basketball shoes in 2026. They are built to play in and bought to wear.

The read here is franchise management. The MB.06 Black/Gold arrived earlier this month with adult and grade school sizing at once, which already pointed at PUMA treating the MB as a catalog line rather than a drop. The Hills continues that. Nothing about this release is engineered for scarcity, there is no collaborator, and the name carries no story the brand is telling. It is a colorway for a shoe PUMA expects to keep on shelves, which is what a real signature line looks like and also why individual releases stop feeling like events.

At $130, the Hills sits in the upper half of PUMA basketball. The MB.05 Lo Team is $120 on PUMA’s site. Haliburton’s Hali 1 is $130. The All-Pro NITRO 2 Core and Frost are both $135, and the Josh Giddey All-Pro NITRO 2 Wonder is $140. becausesneakers had the MB.06 Black/Gold at $110 under style code 314791-01, so PUMA is running the same model across a $20 spread depending on the makeup. That is normal for a mature line and it is worth knowing before paying the higher number for a colorway rather than a construction.

The PUMA MB.06 Hills releases October 16 at $130, with orders opening the evening before at 9 PM PT on October 15. The style code is 313623_01 and the colorway is Cool Mid Gray-Lime Smash. It is loaded as Coming Soon on PUMA.com now. For the other end of PUMA’s week, the Street Fighter Suede lands October 9.

Written by

The Sneakers Team

The Sneakers Team is the editorial desk behind becausesneakers, founded and edited by Nick Engvall. Nick has spent more than two decades in the sneaker industry. He built the original Eastbay Blog, led the first dedicated sneaker team at Complex, ran the first UGC and seeding programs at Finish Line, was employee number nine at StockX, and served as Senior Director at Stadium Goods. He hosts the Sneaker History podcast, and his first book, Small Luxuries: Sneakers, arrives in October 2026 from Motorbooks. Release details on this site are checked against the brand's own product information before publication, and anything we cannot confirm is labelled rather than stated.

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