This is the best unboxing you’ll ever see, and it features the upcoming Air Jordan XXX.
Jacques Slade was invited to attend the recent unveiling of the Air Jordan XXX, and with that he was able to lure Mark Smith and Tinker Hatfield into a room to film a quick unboxing of the shoes. Not only is this an unboxing video, but you’ll hear straight from the designers mouth’s what went into the Air Jordan XXX and why.
I disagree with Tinker on the example he gave as to why the tooling wasn’t changed. While the tooling between the Air Jordan 3-5 all featured the same technology, each was delivered in a very different looking package. The same could have been done for the XXX – but I’ll get into that when I’m finally able to grab a pair.
WearTesters will likely have to wait until the shoe launches to grab a pair for wear-testing so be patient and we’ll get our performance review of the shoes done in late February.
Why couldn’t the replace the phylon with lunar and bring back heel zoom?
There’s a reason why Lunarlon is always encased within a Phylon carrier. It’s too unstable in its unconstrained state for performance footwear. Even Zoom air (or any air cushioning for that matter) is more unstable than traditional foam cushioning. The biomechanical aspect of footwear design is complex and a combination of zoom and lunar wouldn’t necessarily give you the best performance. Otherwise anybody would be able to design the “ideal” midsole.
Hmm… I don’t think it is. Why don’t they remove the front zoom as well? What about Kobe XI offering option for full length zoom? You can give thousands of reasons why this is better. It simply is not convincing to people, other than making people believe that Nike is just trying to make more bucks by cutting the cost.
Same case as the new Retros.
I just want to preface my response by saying that I am not a Nike or Jordan fan boy by any means. I hold advanced degrees in engineering and simply appreciate good footwear design regardless of the brand (although there are admittedly a lot of gimmicks out there). Zoom air is more unstable than foam, period. The technology is based on fibers bridging a gap between two layers of plastic. It isn’t so much the air pressure that gives you the responsiveness. The “feeling” of responsiveness comes from the elastic buckling of the fibers, which by definition is an unstable process. It turns out by coring out the heal, you can achieve the same level of impact protection while reducing weight. Honestly, from a performance standpoint, you really don’t need the responsiveness of Zoom air in the heal for impact protection unless the shoe is exceptionally low to the ground. The Kobe line is very low to the ground and hence the Lunar combined with the Zoom Air. For very low to the ground shoes, the stability of the midsole material is less of an issue, but I bet you the cushioning will lose its responsivness sooner. Also, notice that all of Kobe’s shoes have the Lunar foam still encased in an outer chassis. In the case of the Kobe X, the foam is purposely surrounded by rigid TPU. The foam is NEVER exposed laterally. Same case with the Lebron XI.
Having said all that, I also think the Jordan 30’s design played it on the safe side. True, the 3-5 used variations of the same tooling but all models that came after had a different tooling. I think the shoe will probably still perform very well but ultimately lacks the “fresh” innovation expected for a 30th anniversary product. I’m guessing the AJ 31 will be much different.
Sorry, but the 6, 7 and 8 are all very similar shoes, as well,IMO. Personally, I feel, the 28 and 29 are the best performance shoes from Jordan Brand and keeping the best aspects from those models and tweaking for improvements is solidthinking. That’s just my opinion.
I am surprised at all the backlash over these last 3 models (xxx included). Arguably these are the best since 1997! Everyone’s style tastes are different, but, what’s wrong with the look of the xx9? There have been so many complaints about its colorways and looks. The all-star, triple black, mtm, quai 54, the recent white and red PE of Westbrook’s, the BHM (to an extent) are a solid fashion choice, as well as, on court choice. The all-star shoe is a blank canvas that can be customized to anyones liking. Dye the sole blue on the MTM and you have a Gamma 11 inspired “neck breaker”. IMO, the Year of the Goat and Team Orange colorways are rad as fuck too. The performance weave material of the 29 and knit on the 30 are extremely “on trend” looks that pair well with, joggers, jeans and with or without socks (yeah, I’m a white male! So what?!). Retro’s can look fresh to, but so can a herd of sheep, all snap chatting on their iPhones (get a Nexus!). Frankly, tomorrow’s retro’s are going to be outstanding. As to this first colorway of the 30 and it’s added details from a looks standpoint are too busy and cheap looking. The new toe cap and XXX heel counter should have remained hidden in that aspect. Then it truly would look almost identical to the xx9. I’ve always felt the 3-5 and 6-8 where virtually the same shoes and think that was a good thing. In the case of the 28-30, I think it’s a GREAT thing.
I’m just disappointed in people’s reactions. Have the majority of the complainers ever worn and/or played in a 28 or 29? Are the signature 1-14 all they’ve ever owned? Have they ever ventured outside of the signature Jordans to the superfly, or any of the flights? I’m seriously beginning to wonder. I’m also thinking my way of thinking isn’t anywhere near the norm any longer.
Totally agree on zoom being less stable than foam, no question. Like you said, zoom is always surrounded by foam, so when it is pressed and deformed, it is held in one direction – down. Zoom is always stabilized by either foam or internal structures (like the internal pillars in LeBron X). A lot of people understand that.
But people love Zoom for comfort. It has been proved by sneaker heads that zoom is likely the most comfortable cushion and has good performance. People still do.
Now, I am sure Nike has R&D, and they have run a lot of research to prove that in heel area with new Phylon foam + no zoom maybe better than old Phylon + zoom. But, when people think zoom is better, and you don’t explain yourself well, people think you are cheating, especially when you contradict yourself by keeping the zoom in the fore foot. How is it better?
You can argue that different players, different positions love different setup. Then what the hell are the deals of the team shoes, like Hyperdunk, Adidas Team signature lines, which they claim fits from PG to C?
Even for Hyperdunk, they move the zoom around: for one you have zoom + Lunalon, then front and back zoom, then full Lunalon, then zoom + phylon. They always claim that “this is the best.” Well how? Please explain the contradictions.
Nike should explain better why they have change the technology over the years, because people just don’t believe it. Think about it, the plastic materials are much cheaper than leather, machines are more capable then before, and the price has gone up for more than 50%, but you cut out everything people used to love and still claim this is better? How people are gonna trust you?
Same with Adidas’ new Adiprene+ foam argument.
I agree with many of the points you raised. I also think that Nike should do a better job of explaining the rationale behind their sneaker designs, but excluding nerds like us (who I’m sure make up a small fraction of the total consumer population), I think the majority of the consumers don’t care enough about the details to question the technology. Of course, a lot of the tech in the final product just comes down to marketing as well. In our fast-paced 21st Century, people expect a new model featuring the most innovative technology from a year-to-year basis. That being said, I’m guessing for their player or team signature shoes, whether they exclude or include a technology comes down to feedback from the athletes who weartest the samples during the iterative design process. Why the company keeps changing the cushioning tech on the Hyperdunk models from year to year is beyond my understanding, but if I had to guess, it probably comes down to maximizing profit. Because Nike is first and foremost a corporation, it is difficult for the common consumer such as myself to differentiate between meaningful design and marketing ploy.
On another note, have you noticed that none of the flagship designers at Nike or any of the big companies (Tinker, Mark Smith, Jason Petrie, etc.) come from a true engineering background? Most of them, I would venture to say, are more industrial design artist than true engineer by training. Do they really understand the biomechanics of the foot and what it needs to maximize performance in basketball? Are their drawings truly informed by data from biomedical research or are just based mostly on their intuition? Does the cushioning tech really make a difference in performance or do we think it does just because it “feels” like it does? Personally, I have my doubts …
The designers don’t know much about technology then engineers. But the shoes are engineered by their technical staff. They should know what’s what.
Personally, I don’t think zoom will boost your performance a lot, neither Shox, Adiprene, or Air, .etc. But Nike used to say it does, and people got into believing that. And now what they have done is like totally rejection to what them use to do.
Lol at Mark Smith hushing Tinker. Jordan needs to stop with the secrecy. Its not Star Wars, focus your attention on making colorways people will actually enjoy for the 30.
Hahahaha, what a joke. Nike / JB brag so much about innovation and now Tinker wants to make us believe in this straight BS talk that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I’m serious, since yesterday on every release and on every interview they keep making up excuses. Even the price of the shoe has been lowered. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or an insult (since new tech has always meant a higher price). They better stop doing those interviews, It’s becoming embarrassing…
No matter what they say, it’s still AJ29 SE. That’s exactly how every SE is different from the original version — little modifications here and there. In fact, the difference between 19 SE and 19 is even bigger than what I see here.
What they are saying is basically “we can’t think of a better idea of how to make a tooling, and we don’t even want to change how this tooling looks like even a little bit.”
This is a shoe that everyone has expected to be a revolution because it’s JB’s 30th anniversary, and we’ve been waiting for it for too long that it was not even released in the anniversary year. Now they give us a shoe that used a tooling that’s almost identical to 29’s tooling, with a upper they claim to be very different but I don’t see a major change.
Anyone who thinks JB did a good job here is biased, you know it.
Ive never talked to tinker or heard him talk before until this video, but going by just this… He sounds like an idiot. Hate me or whatever, but that’s my opinion
Anyway, they should have just named it the 29se and worked on a truly new 30. Tooling for the bottom can be the same bur the upper needs drastic changes.
Can they stop lying and saying that the heel is flyknit? Lol it’s not. Saying “this is a new combination of flyknit/weave that we haven’t used before” yadey-yadey-ya. They’re smart for lowering the price. Any higher and the weartesters might be the only ones purchasing this shoe
I feel like the reused tooling would be slightly more acceptable if it at least looked different, just as you said Nightwing. But with literally the exact same designed midsole and the outsole being 95% the same its not acceptable imo. Especially for it being the 30th anniversary shoe and all that. Embarrassing
With it being the 30th edition and knowing the significance, there’s no excuse for that. Eric Avar said they started working on a flyknit basketball shoe for Kobe as early as the KB6. Maybe Tinker’s just getting too old to think up new ideas lol
The key problem is of course that 30, is an anniversary, and the effort just wasn’t there(which is never a good idea on anniversaries), even within Jordan Brand, the Melo m12 is a better design, with a much more finished look, the Super.Fly 4 PO has more updates than the XX9 to XXX.
The really odd part, if the Slam Dunk was the inspiration, why the abstracted ‘inspiration’, there’s 2 things you can easily weave into the look that everybody thinks of when you say: “Jordan Slam Dunk”, a frame-by-frame photo of the FT-line Dunk, or Elephant-print/Cement(they could’ve literally switched it with the XX9 low(Black/Grey/Infrared) just as lazy as this design, only it’d look better).
It would’ve been a much more convincing 30, because it would introduce a next-step in using the patterning options on the weave, which is something that also isn’t going very fast of course, the woven gives you all kinds of options…. use it.
I know one thing, I will never listen to or trust a Nike shoe performance review coming from Jacques Slade. Obviously he is a Nike insider, which means his loyalty will always outweigh his honesty.
One of the best things about Weartesters is their focus on brands other than Nike and Jordan. So you hate every Jordan after the XIV, hate the outrageous prices, and Tinker is an idiot ( no, he’s not, seems like some forget he designed the 3-15,20, and 23)? Well, give Under Armour, Brandblack, and Ni-Ling a chance. I remember when trying other brands wasn’t even a possibility for some. I love all the feedback the XXX is getting, I’m sure JB does as well.
Li-Ning (李宁)
I need 12 minutes of my life back after watching this video.
I totally get how underwhelming it is to straight up reuse the tooling without at least a noticeable facelift, but seeing comments/posts (like on NT) dwelling into what Tinker’s aptitude and what he should do is flat out silly.
It’s not like we’ve all been in the business to really know what to do when catering to the needs of professional players, and maybe the design team really couldn’t come up with a real successor to the current Flight Speed/Plate iteration in this yearly time frame. For all we know they really went no-frills in just working towards Westbrook’s and Kawhi’s interests vs. sales — there’s enough retros to take care of that and they dropped the price here.
People are crapping on a shoe that they haven’t even tried yet. They targeted a hybrid mid/low fit, ventilation (which was probably the imperfection of the 29), and a bit more robustness. Maybe it’s gonna still add up to the 29.5, and without a doubt Nike saves in being able to reuse tooling and resources, but to outright suggest that Tinker has no idea what he’s doing is ridiculous.
That unboxing vid was just…eh. Anyone can see right through it as another press release, and getting bent on every little detail isn’t worth it.
With the “printing” hush, it sounds like the next AJ might use some sort of 3D printing tech…or they’ll just update the 29 again. haha
I’m just as disappointed as most of you guys. It is what it is. Jordan Brand, if you are listening: give us some INCREDIBLE colorways. Make that Cosmos colorway a very super general release.
this
You are definitely not getting a pair from JB haha
The shoe will perform i have no doubt about it, but they should have cut the crap for once
To me, this is a good pair of shoes in terms of looking and performance.
However, I think he just designed this like a month ago before the presentation. Since the workload and the changes of the shoe shouldn’t more than two weeks. In my opinion, he can just use this as a sample and do a low-cut version to make it the real xx9 low. The release date for xx9 low and xxx is too close that I do not think they can sell it well.
I guess it’s all opinion, but I’ve never thought the Jordan xx9 was the best performing shoe. Not even close. That being said, it is what it is. I won’t buy a pair with that tooling as I don’t enjoy it. Y’all can do the same. In the end, your money talks. You just have to exercise your power as a consumer.
There clean I want too see some bull colorways 1st most of you will cop once that one bad ass color drop yeah I miss the leather and suede on the shoes and I’m 80sbaby no hypebeast….. But I’m sick of retros 1-13 where’s 14-23 these 30s r on point
I don’t belive this mf Rogers Hail Mary again AZ what was you thinkin
you know everything has gone wrong with Jordan brand with this kind of video alibi.
Whatever design they had going got scrapped and they had little time to test new tooling.
They messed up but literally had a set up that other brands cant match just yet.
I buy new js a year later at the outlets when I need a new hoop shoe.
There will be a new 31 by the time I grab these for 100 so im not mad.
people get insulted like they are required to buy these things for full retail day 1.
If traction fit and comfort is improved, the look being similar matters little to me.
I mean we could go the other direction like the kobe 11 where traction is worse than almost any of the previous 10 shoes but “hey we got a new midsole.”
Hands down, Nikes best performance shoe at any price.