10 Things We Learned From The Air Jordan Book

Peppered throughout the new Air Jordan coffee table book by Assouline are several gatefold posters that reveal the scope of the sneaker’s impact on culture. One poster features dozens upon dozens of music lyrics that mention either Michael Jordan or the Air Jordan line. A quick glance on these lines reveal the expected names like Jay-Z or LL Cool J or Kendrick Lamar, but along with those luminaries are lyrics in Russian and Japanese and other languages. Stylish, a song by Chinese rapper BOOGIE, hops from English to Mandarin with the fluency of someone who watched full game replays of classic MJ games announced by Marv Albert with color commentary from Bill Walton. In an era where people are trying to figure out what America is all about these days, there is no doubt one of our greatest exports is Michael Jordan and his sneakers. He brought the world to us in ways that no movie or television show or song could even dare to attempt.

Finding new stuff to say about Jordan and the Jordan Brand 40 years in is not an enviable task. Social media, blogs, and even Nike themselves have mined that Jordan content cave for every single nugget that could be turned into a post, talking point, or retro colorway. The book merges many of the things terminally online sneakerheads already knew with new bits that could someday turn into social posts or even new ideas for sneaker colorways. However, what we here at the Sole Retriever offices were not prepared for was a cameo that was about as shocking as some of the golf that Michael Jordan tries to pull off in these pages.

Book courtesy of Jacques Slade (aka @kustoo)

1 - Nike Has Fully Co-Opted “Bred”

A shorthand used by the sneaker community because black and red took too long to get to the point, Jordan Brand did not embrace the term “Bred” immediately. The guardrails started to come down a little around the time of the launch of the 2012 retro of the black and red Air Jordan 11, but it would take the Air Jordan 4 retro in black and red in 2019 for Bred to actually be integrated in the marketing. The book fully embraces Bred as it is mentioned about as many times as Michael Jordan can shoehorn the phrase “the game of basketball” into a single interview.

2 - The “Playground” Poster Wasn’t Staged

Posters today don’t carry the same cultural value they did in the 80s and 90s, but that was one of the ways kids were able to let their imaginations run wild and picture themselves alongside their heroes. One of the more iconic Jordan posters ever made was the “Playground” shot that features Michael in his Bred Air Jordan 4s elevating above several kids for a dunk. But what people don’t know is that the kids were responsible for that frame being used in the poster. According to photographer Stephen Wilkes, one of the kids dared to talk trash to Michael and in response, Jordan crossed one of them over and soared in for the dunk, the look of awe and bewilderment on those kids was not played up for the camera. Looking at in hindsight, it’s a precursor to the “f**k them kids” meme, but also allowed kids to imagine themselves being in the same position, watching greatness as it unfolded.

3 - Air Jordan 5 Prototype

Along with insights from the key players at Nike and Jordan Brand, the book also features several Air Jordan models in different phases of production before they are ready to be sent out to the world. One pair that gets a full page treatment is the Air Jordan 5. Using a white and red colorway that Supreme would sort of replicate a few decades later, the most notable feature is the use of the netting on the tongue. Whether that was just a placeholder for the inevitable use of reflective material on several classic colorways or someone had the great foresight to put a stop to it, being able to get a closer look into the design process benefits consumers and quiets armchair quarterbacks who always think they can do better than these professionals.

4 - Air Jordan 13 Bred is Now “The Last Dance” Air Jordan 13

The Air Jordan 13 Bred owns one of the great “what ifs” in sneaker history. What if Michael Jordan had acquiesced to Tinker Hatfield’s request to not wear the Air Jordan 14 during the 1998 NBA Finals? Is the legacy of the Air Jordan 13 - a sneaker that is beloved by seemingly everybody not writing this piece - even greater because they would have been on Michael Jordan’s feet for “The Last Shot?” Either way, it looks like Nike is now trying to tip the scales a little bit. They have adopted the name “The Last Dance” for the Bred 13s after Jordan’s Finals-worn Bred 13s sold for over $2 million at auction. Don’t be surprised when the time comes for the Bred 13s to get a retro release and Jordan Brand gives us the history lesson we never got before.

5 - Michael Jordan’s Gatorade of Choice

As a product spokesman, Michael Jordan was a gift from the marketing gods. As his agent David Falk said in 2005, “You take a 6-foot-6 guy who is attractive, muscular, articulate, a great jumper, and all other ingredients that make up Michael, and you still need lightning to strike the mix to create what happened.” Jordan’s unicorn status as a pitchman is enhanced by his curiosity and unwavering loyalty: if he endorsed your product, it meant he actually used your product. So when Gatorade became MJ’s official sports drink, he really did drink it, until he switched to the low-calorie G2 version recently. Because even our heroes have to watch what they drink now that they are no longer in their prime.

6 - There is Only One True “Space Jam” Air Jordan 11 Retro

Do you own a pair of the 2000 Space Jam Air Jordan 11? Maybe you were able to snag one during the 2009 retro release? You probably appreciated them as a “Space Jam” sneaker, right? You wore them confidently because these were the same sneakers that Michael Jordan wore when he teamed up with Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Tune Squad to defeat the Monstars? Well, what if an official book on the history of Air Jordans dropped in 2025 to tell you that you’ve been living a lie? In the third chapter of the book that deep dives into Jordan’s impact on pop culture, Jordan’s starring role in the movie “Space Jam” is mentioned. Naturally, the Space Jam Air Jordan 11 was also a part of the conversation, but according to the book, those 11s were “made available to the public only in 2016, in celebration of the film’s 20th anniversary.” In the eyes of the brand, the 2016 release is the only real “Space Jam” sneaker. Ultimately, it’s a semantic argument as they did nothing to dissuade the public from believing the 2000 and 2009 were not Space Jams, but it is an interesting look into their process and what they believe internally.

7 - An Error Only a Gamer Would Notice

Editing a book with the size and scope of Air Jordan had to have been a difficult task. To go through the many levels of approval between Nike, Jordan Brand, and Michael Jordan probably required countless hours of back and forth emails and pdfs being shared with enough notes to max out the iPhone app. But sometimes you need an outside eye with an expertise in a different field to look at the book and see if there’s something amiss. As a former video game journalist who had a PC in 1993, I played “Michael Jordan In Flight.” While I would agree with Computer Gaming World’s assessment that it was “the most visually realistic sports software on the market” at the time, the gameplay was not befitting of the athlete it was featuring. In the book, the version of the game they are describing in the caption does not match what’s pictured. Alongside the cover of NBA 2K11 is the LCD-handheld of Michael Jordan In Flight, a barely 1-bit experience that is a far cry from the “visually realistic sports software” that the book is describing. Hopefully that gets fixed in the second printing.

8 - The “Failure” Commercial Was Supposed to Look a Lot Different

Michael Jordan will be the first to tell you he has failed over and over again. He’s not the perfect basketball player the internet has conditioned us to believe he is thanks to non-stop clips of him never failing. Michael Jordan has failed and sometimes, he’s failed quite spectacularly. That’s why his commercial recounting all of those failures in his mind as he walks through the tunnel of an arena in an immaculately tailored suit is among his best and most memorable. But it wasn’t supposed to look like that initially. The original treatment for the commercial featured MJ wearing a hood pulled over his head with jeans and big black boots. While the story doesn’t dig deeper into what level of creative control Jordan may have flexed in the shoot, the final product tells us that he definitely had a hand in reshaping his image.

9 - Sole Retriever Made the Book

True story: nobody on staff knew the site would be featured in the book. So imagine my surprise when I turned to page 257. As I was quietly reading the part where Carmelo Anthony talked about what being a part of Jordan Brand meant to him, the words Sole Retriever started to come into focus. To say that I became the DiCaprio pointing meme would be an understatement. It’s a feeling of validation knowing that people are watching, reading and paying attention. They thought enough of your work that it deserved to be put in a tome that will serve as reference material for years to come.

That being said, I’m glad I joined the staff a few months ago. The place I used to work at couldn’t even sniff a mention, probably because they deleted all my work, but that’s neither here nor there.

10 - Michael Jordan is Just as Sentimental as You

Throughout the book, you will see pictures of never-before-seen Michael Jordan memorabilia that could only have one source: Michael Jordan himself. For all of the talk about Jordan fans being stuck in the past and revering what came before to unhealthy levels, the man himself was right there with them all along. It is a little bit different because Jordan was the one who experienced those moments that everybody was witness to. At the same time, it is comforting to know that they were not just immediately discarded for the next shiny thing. From childhood awards to letters written by the late NBA commissioner David Stern to a dusty old Nike shoebox filled with worn baseball gloves from his year-and-a-half hiatus from the game of basketball, Michael Jordan is a bit of a nostalgia freak and that’s ok. He’s just like us, except for the part where he’s the greatest to ever lace a pair of Air Jordans… or any other basketball shoe.

Juan Martinez

From video game journalism to veteran of the sneaker blog era to podcasting about well, everything, Juan is smiling through it all and can't believe this is his life. After recently getting into Formula 1, he now has hot takes about who the greatest driver of all time is. Email: juan@soleretriever.com