Remember just a few short years ago when everybody and their baby’s momma’s momma Mrs. Jackson, was going crazy about the ridiculous price of the newly unveiled Big Baller Brand ZO2 shoe. LaVar Ball had completely lost his freakin’ mind even suggesting that a boy pay him $495 for a shoe of a dun that hadn’t played a lick of NBA basketball. Not to mention that he was telling boyz that if they wore a size 14 or larger it was going to cost them an additional $200. Remember that foolishness? And don’t let me forget that if you paid for them in the spring of 2017 they weren’t going to ship until that November with no refunds. Y’all remember that?
I know you do. I’m just reminding you of how ignorant it all was when you think about how the shoe game really popped off for Michael Jordan.
Jordan Brand took off because Jordan was Jordan ALREADY!!! It’s now a status symbol to have a pair or should I say several pairs. It’s the Gucci or Louis Vuitton of sneakers now. The only reason Mike had a shoe in the first place was because he was MJ!!! The MJ that was an NCAA Champion, an Olympic Gold Medalist (1984), the College Player of the Year and the NBA’s Rookie of the Year when he signed with Nike! In other words, he was the freakin’ man ALREADY!! Not because his daddy was throwing hype in the wind before he had even done anything bruh.
It was crazy to watch “The Last Dance” and see how Mike didn’t want to even meet with Nike and if it wasn’t for his parents the Jordan Brand wouldn’t have even existed. Praise God for active parents. The rest is history.
Let’s keep it real or all the way 100, whichever comes 1st! Jordan’s success on the floor is what drove the brand through the roof. It sold initially but nothing like it did once the Bulls started winning championships. It wasn’t until the early 1990’s that the Jordan Brand became what seemed like the exclusive shoe to wear and that was because by then the brand was established by Jordan’s success as an NBA player.
The freakin’ shoe came out my freshman year of college in 1985 and it didn’t cost but $65! With inflation that’s like $136 today!! LaVar Ball was trying to sting boyz for 4 times that much and his son hadn’t even been drafted yet. So how in the world can you justify hitting a boy up for $500 for a shoe marketed for a dun that hadn’t accomplished anything?
Mike didn’t get a shoe deal until after he’d balled out his first year and even with all of that boyz still weren’t running to the store buy the Jordan shoe like that. Don’t get it twisted, they sold the heck out of the shoe but it still wasn’t the shoe of choice. Not in 1985, ’86, ’87, ’88 or ’89!!! How do I know? Because I was in college and everybody was wearin’ Adidas, Filas, Reeboks and Air Nike!! Not Jordan! I can only remember one cat on campus rockin’ a pair of Jordans my sophomore year at Purdue. One!! What was everybody wearin’? Adidas and these new shoes called Filas and Reeboks.
To keep it all the way 100 Adidas was killin’ the game because Run DMC had just signed a deal with them and they had a record out in ’86 called “My Adidas!” Hip Hop was commercially 6 years old at the time and Run DMC was the biggest thing out at the time. That’s why ADIDAS was the joint. That’s probably why Mike wanted to sign with them instead of Nike.
There were a few kids wearing the new Jordan’s but it wasn’t a fashion statement because DMC had boyz goin’ crazy with the Adidas joggin’ suits and Bailey’s wide brim gangsta hats and LL Cool J had boyz rockin’ the Kangol. What type of shoes was he wearing in the I’m Bad video? Air Nike!! Not the Jordan’s!!! You couldn’t wear the ADIDAS warm up with Nike Air Jordan’s bruh.
I pledged Phi Beta Sigma in 1988 and guess what the name of my line was? The Five Men of A.D.I.D.A.S.! Why? Because that’s what boyz were wearing! Nobody was wearin’ Jordan’s like that because the Bulls were HORRIBLE at the time. Yes the shoe sold but it had yet to become this cultural phenomenon.
Mike had to establish the brand by ballin’ out of control first. It wasn’t until Mike started winning titles in 1991 that the Jordan Brand became the “must have” shoe in the hood. How do I know? Because I’m old enough to have seen the transition from the other sneakers to Jordan. I was a grown man before Jordan’s became the “IT” shoe! Grown as in college degree grown. Why? Because Michael Jordan endorsed his own shoe with his ability to play the game at the highest level and win!! But not until then.
So let me get back to my 43 year olds!! What year were you graduatin’ from high school? That would be 1994 right? Jordan was the freakin’ man by then because he’d just won 3 straight NBA titles!!! Because of his endorsement of the shoes from 1991-94 they had become the MUST HAVE shoe!!!
Now it’s the Gucci or Louis Vuitton of sneakers. Duns are wearing them because it’s the shoe to wear but it only became the shoe to wear because Mike put in the work to get it to that point.
Think about it playa, if you’re 43 years old you were 9 when the Jordan first came out! You had no idea what was really goin’ on then. You don’t remember when there was no such thing as a shoe game. Shoes didn’t come out every month or every three months. They came out when you saw them in the store in 1985. There was no announcement as to when and what shoe was coming out. You just went to the store and bought what was on the self.
The Jordan was on the shelf next to the Adidas, Filas, Reebok and the Air Nike. You chose either one of them and kept it movin’ and more often than not you picked up the Adidas, Filas or the Reeboks because they had just hit the market too.
However, Jordan was able to market the Air Jordan on the floor by becoming the best basketball player most of us had ever seen and winning 6 championships didn’t hurt. Being able to market a shoe with most famous person alive has established the Brand for a lifetime. Give Mike his props for putting in the work that will now feed his blood line for generations to come. Respect to Jordan and the Jordan Brand. Stop me when I start lyin’!
Playas Thesaurus:
1) Spit: verb – to say
2) Ms. Jackson: noun – rap song by OutKast
The caption under the photo isn’t real but its real talk!
