Nike Unveils The New Jordan XXXI

One word review:

*FART NOISE*

Its been about 15 years since Nike has put out a new pair of Jordans that live up to the kicks that were released during MJs career. I personally tap out at 12s. There are a couple colorways of 13s that I like, and I know the Black Cat design was very popular. 14s I think were the last release that are considered a classic at all. I rocked the Laney Lows, thought they were legit. But after that its been completely downhill. The Jordan line continues to thrive on retros and thats really it.

The early reaction to the 31s seems to be that they are nicer than any of the recent Jordans that have come out. But that aint saying much. When this is the competition:

That really aint saying much. I would love to get inside the mind of some Nike execs and understand what their approach is here. I mean the entire reason the Jordan line was the most popular of all time is because they are shoes that you can wear on and off the court. All the retros stand the test of time because they werent designed strictly for basketball and they never got too trendy with it. 1s, 3s, 4s, 6s, 10s, 11s, 12s – they are all timeless lifestyle kicks that you can wear in every day casual life. The new age designs are the complete opposite. Its like they dont even consider the off the court aspects anymore. Or, at least I hope they dont. If these are created with the hopes that people will like them as shoes for regular wear, they are big time strikeouts. Tinker Hatfield is still the guy drawing up these designs so its not that they dont have the talent to create iconic shoes anymore. Its like they just dont try to anymore.

I can kind of understand if they decided to focus strictly on basketball performance. At the end of the day the object is to create basketball shoes to wear while playing basketball. With brands like Under Armour creeping up creating high quality shoes to wear during play, you dont want to be the brand putting out clunky, heavy leather kicks. But even if Nike decided to focus more on the actual in-game performance, these designs are still just lame. They look like any old performance sneaker that you would grab off the wall at Modell’s. The giant Jumpman logo reminds me of when Polo released those shirts with the gigantic horse logo on the chest. The flyweave upper gives it that trendy appearance of what every other athletic shoe is doing. I think its stupid to ignore the off the court appeal of shoes, but whats even worse is how little these new on-court shoes stand out. The annual Jordan drop used to stand out from all other shoes. Looked different or special. Now they just blend in with any other pair of Nikes. These 31s specifically look like a pair of bum ass Currys:

I think after like a decade plus of strikeouts you can officially declare new Air Jordan’s dead. Unless Tinker just decides to so “fuck it” and go make a pair like he used to without worrying about the new age trends and performance demands, I think you can forever forget about the idea of a new design of Jordans living up to any of the shoes 1 through 12, 13, 14.