Air Jordans

Spike Lee’s character Mars Blackmon explained sneaker culture best—“It’s gotta be the shoes!” If you believe that, then you can imagine playing like the greatest basketball players on Earth. Not coincidentally, in 1988, Portland ad agency Wieden+Kennedy produced the first of its landmark Nike ads featuring Mars alongside the greatest basketball player—as well as the greatest shoe salesman—in NBA history: Michael Jordan. Sneakers are equal parts cool, comfortable and charismatic. They are an expression of personal fashion and a form of artwork. It doesn’t matter if you call them kicks, steps or Harlems—we gotta have ’em. Today, the sneaker business is an $85.5 billion global industry, up from $34.2 million in 2012, and everyone wants in. Sneakerheads search for “Holy Grails”—vintage shoes in pristine condition—often with the intention of never…

ADIDAS JABBAR LOW Year Introduced: 1971 Who Wore It Best: KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR, MILWAUKEE BUCKS History: In the early 1970s, basketball shoes made up about 10% of Adidas’ sales, so Horst Dassler, son of company founder Adi Dassler, began signing NBA players to endorsement deals in an effort to boost his bottom line. In 1971, he inked Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—then known as Lew Alcindor—to an agreement that paid the 7-foot-2 Milwaukee Bucks center $25,000 a year. The Adidas Jabbar Low, as it would later be called, was a simple shoe for a far-from-simple man. Abdul-Jabbar wore a size 16 with three blue stripes and a blue back. He went on to win the 1971 NBA title in the iconic kicks (made to take the punishment of his sky hook, according to Adidas),…

AVIA 880 Year Introduced: 1989 Who Wore It Best: ROBERT PARISH, BOSTON CELTICS History: Clyde Drexler, Scottie Pippen and John Stockton were among the NBA stars who wore Avia shoes, but it was Boston Celtics center Robert Parish who made them famous with his Avia 880 high-tops. The black kicks had white accent colors and the word AVIA written on both sides. (Earlier in his career, Parish had worn Avia 830s.) In 2011, Complex ranked the 880 No. 22 on its list, “The Top 25 Big Man Shoes of All-Time,” and in 2012, the magazine ranked it 79th on its list, “The 80 Greatest Sneakers of the ’80s.” The shoe utilized Avia’s patented “cantilever”—a cushion that provided shock-absorption and stability. In 1991, Avia (which had been acquired by Reebok four…

REEBOK THE PUMP Year Introduced: 1989 Who Wore It Best: DEE BROWN, BOSTON CELTICS, AT THE 1991 NBA SLAM DUNK CONTEST History: The Reebok Pump was released on Nov. 24, 1989, during a wave of technological innovation in the sneaker industry. The company’s engineers had placed a pump inside the shoe’s tongue that could inflate an air cushion that conformed to the shape of the wearer’s foot. Despite the eye-popping price of $170, Reebok sold 4 million pairs in the first 18 months. (At the time, with $500 million in sales, the Pump would have been the fourth-largest athletic shoe company in the U.S.) The first NBA player to wear it was high-flying forward Dominique Wilkins of the Atlanta Hawks. But the shoe’s popularity exploded after Boston Celtics guard Dee…

UNDER ARMOUR CURRY ONE Year Introduced: 2015 Who Wore It Best: STEPH CURRY, GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS History: In the summer of 2013, before Steph Curry had won any NBA titles or MVP awards—even before he had been named an All-Star—his Nike contract was up for renewal. At the Swoosh’s pitch meeting, company reps mispronounced Curry’s name and inadvertently showed a PowerPoint slide featuring Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant. Feeling slighted, he signed with Under Armour that September. At first, Curry sported the brand’s Clutchfit Drive and Anatomix Spawn sneakers, but then Under Armour released his first signature shoe, the Curry One. The upper used Anafoam, an anatomically molded foam fused with a flexible mesh. “I’m just trying to write my own story,” Curry said at the shoe’s introductory press…

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