I have a theory with this J 2 design being the reason MJ wanted to leave if you all read me out.
Ok, we all believe the 2 was so wack that MJ said hell no Im out. Right? What if that was not the case. Im sitting here at home putting thought into this with some fun at the same time thinking how, in 1987, was this a bad design? It was not. In fact it was a first.
How? It was the first Nike basketball shoe without the swoosh and Nike Branding as we all know it. In 1987, no other basketball Nike sneaker was made without the giant Swoosh on the side of them. None. What if this design by Moore and Kilgore pissed off Nike, leading to MJ being pissed off AT Nike?
O
ogSlater
needs to ask this with his connect to the man Tink himself. I would be seriously intrigued to the response.
What if the design was not the problem, but the politic/backlash FROM NIKE was? Nike pissed about a Nike shoe with minimal branding. They promised MJ to make a shoe that was about him. They really tried to execute that promise with the 2. Nike was against it, causing Mike to want to leave in result. Only because of feeling like Nike was back peddling on THEIR promise. Pissed Mike off. Wasnt he talking to those same designers that left for Adidas on a golf course? If the design was SO bad, why would he have anything to do with them.
The compromise/savior? Obviously the 3, we all know that. But the JUMPMAN more so. A silhouette more personal to the man in exchange for the return of the Nike Air branding. It could make sense.
My point of all this is to say maybe the politics that took place behind the shoes design was more of a problem to Mike than the design itself. I know nothing about nothing here. Just maybe a fun convo.
