Air Jordan XI (11)
Head Designer: Tinker Hatfield
Jordan was back for real and he led the Bulls
to yet another NBA victory. He also became the
second man to ever win Most Valuable Player awards
for the regular season, All-Star Game and NBA
Finals in the same season. He averaged 30.4 points
per game and scored 40 or more points in nine
games. What a come back!
Triple come back
If Jordan was back, so was Tinker Hatfield. A
terrific design with a new patent leather and
the return of the clear rubber sole made the Air
Jordan XI the most appreciated Air Jordan model
ever released.
But when the design stunned everyone, the durability
and quality was disappointing. Again the clear
rubber soles easily yellowed and the patent leather
also tended to crack up and/or easily get scratched.
Top design - lacking quality
With the XI's we also saw the return of low-tops.
Something that would follow the Air Jordan's all
the way to the XVI's (though skipping the XII's).
Back to the banning days
Michael was fined $5000 per game during the semifinals
in 1995 for wearing the white/black-dk concord
ones. He wore them twice and this was looked upon
as uniform violation as the rest of the Bulls
wore entirely black shoes. (This kind of brings
back memories from when the I's were banned from
the NBA.)
Being fined two games was enough though and the
next game he wore Anfernee Hardaway's shoes.
But did Nike enjoy MJ not wearing AJ's? Probably
not as he got the "Space Jam's" for
the remaining games. The same shoes that could
also be seen in the movie Space Jam
Retro fever
When the XI's were retroed in 2000-2001 they would
prove to become the retro that sold in the highest
quantity ever and also the fastest selling Air
Jordan's of all time. |
