"I'm gonna offer you a fist bump," Tinker Hatfield says, holding out his gloved right hand. He took a tumble off a motorized longboard days before, and while a collegiate pole-vaulting career and a lifetime of skiing taught the 66-year-old how to fall, the remote control in his paw stopped him from tucking his thumb in—and when said thumb met the street, the street won.

Hatfield popped it back into place while he was still skidding down the street, but thumbs are fragile, fickle things by design, so he needed something to hold it all in place while it healed. When you're Nike’s VP of creative concepts and the most recognized sneaker designer of all time, full immobilization is off the table. "No casts," he told the doctor. "I need to draw."

Enter compromise in the form of the black neoprene glove: It allows him to hold a pencil or stylus without jeopardizing the ornate tape job underneath, or the delicate ulnar collateral ligament another layer down. All the protection and support he needs, none of the added bulk or weight that might get in the way. It's a suspiciously apt parallel, given Hatfield's career—and why we're sitting here in the Innovation Kitchen, the most secretive wing inside the most secretive building on Nike's sprawling campus in Beaverton, Oregon, on a cold Monday morning in December.

"The Architect," as Hatfield is known among sneakerheads, has churned out a closetful of iconic models since he joined the company in 1981. The Air Max One let people peer through a window in the midsole to see the internal cushioning; the Air Trainer 1, with its velcro strap over the forefoot, kicked off the "cross-training" craze in the mid-’80s. Other models simply became known by namesakes of the athletes who popularized them, like the Air Trainer SC ("Bo Jacksons") or the Air Tech Challenge 2 ("Andre Agassis"). And of course, there were the Air Jordans. So many Jordans. Thirteen models of the basketball shoe in a row and a handful of others since, each with its own unmistakeable silhouette and fan base.

"The future of proper sports equipment is to help people have more comfort," says Nike designer Tinker Hatfield, "but also longer and safer careers." Ian Allen

But increasingly, Hatfield began stepping back from the table, becoming a godfather of sorts to Nike's 700-person design corps. (It's not like his designs have disappeared; every single one of the sneakers mentioned above could still be purchased in 2018, decades after they were initially released.) He doesn't micromanage, but he does oversee—and the thing he's most excited about having overseen these days is the sneaker that's perhaps more like his glove than anything Nike has ever made.

You may remember that the company's HyperAdapt 1.0, which it released in late 2016, was the first truly self-lacing shoe since Nike first dreamed up the feature for Back to the Future Part II more than 30 years prior. It was also $720, necessitated a kludgy manufacturing process, and was more of a proof of concept than a true performance sneaker. But as with any good 1.0 version, iteration has arrived: The Nike Adapt BB, a basketball sneaker the company announces today, is the first mass-scale deployment of the Fit Adapt system. It's an engineering challenge wrapped in a swoosh, seeking to improve stability and prolong careers at the same time. It's the first peek at an integrated ecosystem of smart footwear that will charge wirelessly, remember your preferences, and even analyze your athletic performance.

But most importantly, it fits like a glove.

From the very beginning, the HyperAdapt 1.0 was a test balloon. You could run in it, sure, but you weren't about to take it out for a half-marathon. You could take it to the gym to play pickup ball, but it was heavier than your other sneakers—and cost at least $500 more. And Nike didn't sink years into creating a self-lacing shoe just to release something that was good at a lot of things but great at none.