THE SHOES

From the start of LeBron’s professional career, he existed in the shadow of Jordan. A “chosen one” in the post-Jordan climate, a special edition of his second signature shoe carrying a “Dunkman” to deliberately draw attention to the Jumpman and those references to the player that owned so many seasons before him in The LeBrons commercials faced the elephant in the room head-on. The decade following James’s professional start would see both franchises expand significantly.

The movement of both series’ defined their future. When Nike launched the Nike Air Jordan in 1985, the colors were a key feature rather than the shoe as a design, which despite being a classic of its kind, was merely a minor evolution of models like the Nike Airship, throwing lurid colors on an existing design. It’s the Bulls colors (and Jordan himself told David Letterman on national TV in 1986 that he thought it was ugly) eliminating the traditional NBA white-on-the-upper rules, that made it legendary. The Nike Zoom Generation’s 2003 release was a significant one, but it wasn’t a hugely creative time for Nike basketball and the quasi-militaristic (sitting with hip-hop’s aesthetic at the time) Hummer styling was created around comfort – it’s a great shoe but it isn’t a turning point, emerging at a time when collector culture was established and speculators were already putting their shoes on ice. There were few surprises and no accidents in the early 2000s – the “First Game” edition’s low, low numbers were part of a more calculated approach to collectibility. It’s safe to assume that few people were grabbing Jordans pre-1995 (Japanese collectors coveting the XI from the moment it dropped changed the dynamic significantly) with money in mind.

The Jordan I sold well in 1985/6 but was actually overproduced – it was released in far too many colorways and in huge numbers, resulting in some issues for Nike at the time, but even its sale rack status (appearing at half price in DIY stores at one point) gave it an extra life as a much-loved skate shoe. That’s how an error becomes a minor triumph and luck became an extra legacy.

The 1980s seemed to be a time of roads untrodden, meaning the hit-and-miss nature of the time created unique product – the Jordan II’s Italian-made, futuristic look and decision to dispense with a Swoosh was drastically different. Discontentment with his deal after that second shoe led to Tinker Hatfield’s masterful Jordan III design in 1988 and it’s here that the synergy really started, giving each chapter a cohesiveness but constant evolution. The LeBron and Ken Link relationship gave LeBron a visual language of its own, but the Zoom LeBron II and III were too similar. Take a look at a timeline of both lines and it’s clear that the Jordans each have their own identity, with a leap between parts two and three and another vast step to part four, which coincided with Michael Jordan signing a deal with Nike where he’d be with them for the duration of his playing career.

After the misstep of overproduction the first time around, each Jordan post 1986 dropped in a more careful edit of colors, whereas the LeBron line has been going ham with the makeups since the LeBron 8 dropped in 2010. A definitive colorway feels like a lynchpin of icon status – that shoe that springs to mind or a personal favorite, but the modern consumer seems to favor volume, raised on an abundance of choice. There was no NIKEiD in Jordan’s heyday, ensuring a slower trickle of memorable makeups.

The LeBron IV has its fans, but does anybody prefer it to a Jordan IV? A bold move for the series, but not a classic. 2009′s Air Max LeBron VII was a reboot for the Nike LeBron line, with a new designer on deck – a great shoe and the start of a rise in interest in new models in a retro saturated marketplace. Sure, you can see the Uptempo nods and the glossy toe was destined to draw comparisons with the Jordan XI, but what designer could avoid being influenced by past triumphs? Tinker’s genius was to pull design cues from anything but sports footwear – even at part 11, those shoes could only be a Jordan release and it’s tough to track the DNA. No two shoes were alike, whereas LeBron’s line occasionally hit a comfort zone. Tinker and Mike had no precedent to riff on and that challenge to innovate forced them to break new ground.