The Definitive Air Jordan Ranking

There are a lot of things we could say here about Air Jordans, many of which you’ve probably heard before. We could talk about their mystique: how they birthed sneaker culture as we know it; how they irrevocably altered the worlds of sports and fashion and marketing; how no other signature line—despite our current cover guy’s claims otherwise—has ever matched their exact formula of technical innovation and beautiful design and cultural prominence. Or we could talk about the little things, like the irrational confidence you feel lacing them up on the blacktop; or how good Frank Ocean looked in Royal 1s at Paris Fashion Week that one time; or how intoxicating a fresh pair smells right out of the box, like Windex and freshly ground pepper.To get more news about cheap jordans, you can visit cheapjordanshoesfreeshipping official website.

Instead, we’re going to say something perhaps a little obvious: that like all collections of great things (movie franchises, Philip Roth novels, Tyler, the Creator fits) there are hits, misses, and plenty of weird things in between. Which means they’re ripe for a ranking—one both arbitrary and definitive.To get more news about cheap jordan shoes, you can visit cheapjordanshoesfreeshipping official website.

And so, with The Last Dance premiering tomorrow night on ESPN, we took this opportunity to re-assess all 34 Air Jordans. The good, the bad, the great, and, especially, the completely wacky—of which there are many. We judged them based on their looks, their on-court performance, and their pop cultural footprint, with a healthy dose of personal nostalgia mixed in for good measure. We look forward to you judging us back in our Twitter mentions. To get more news about cheap air jordan, you can visit cheapjordanshoesfreeshipping official website.
1. Air Jordan III
This is it, folks. This is the one. The sneaker that catapulted the Air Jordan from just another signature line to a pop cultural phenomenon worth mythologizing, lining up for, debating over, and writing lists like this one about. The Is began writing the story, the IIs removed the Swoosh from the sides, but the III is where everything that truly makes a J a J comes into play. It’s the first Jordan designed by Tinker Hatfield, the visionary who pioneered the exposed Air bubble, dreamt up Marty McFly’s self-lacing bangers, and blessed us with eight of the top 10 sneakers below. And it’s the first Jordan to feature the Jumpman, the only corporate logo to inspire both a life-sized bronze statue and an inescapable earworm of a Drake and Future song. The design itself somehow feels retro and futuristic and totally timeless all at once, and the OG colorways gave us the elephant print that’s become a HOF-worthy sneaker culture staple. Add in the classic Mars Blackmon commercials that helped turn Jordan into the most marketable athlete alive, plus the fact that these are reportedly Mike’s favorite Js ever, and you’ve got yourself a clear number-one on a list full of legends.

2. Air Jordan I
Look at it! I mean, look at it. This is the future—of basketball, of sneakers, of style, of Nike, of MJ—in a single high-top sneaker. This is the black-and-red colorway that the NBA deemed illegal, leading Nike to pay Jordan’s fines, literally every sneaker to follow to drop in its own “bred” iteration, and, really, sneakers to turn into vectors of personal style. Its popularity has fluctuated over the years, but ever since a guy from Chicago named Kanye West started wearing them, they catapulted to the top of the Jordan list. It’s not likely they’ll go anywhere soon.
3. Air Jordan XI
MJ hit his pinnacle as an athlete during the ‘90s, and the pinnacle of his sneaker line during that decade—without question—is the Air Jordan XI. Like all great Js, the XI is a seamless marriage of neck-snapping style and elite performance. Even now, that gleaming, tuxedo-aping patent leather is astonishing enough to elicit goosebumps from me, a grown man who has stared at these sneakers thousands of times over the past 25 years. And in 1995, people looked at these things like they’d just crash landed from another galaxy. The real brilliance of the patent mudguard, though, is that it wasn’t just there for the shine: because it’s lighter and less stretchy than full-grain leather, it resulted in a more explosive shoe that held your feet snugly in place. Outside of the Is, the XI is the Air Jordan people are still most likely to camp out overnight to cop: a 2011 retro of the Concord—a colorway so perfect that Jordan wore it for the entire ‘95-96 regular season—incited actual riots outside malls across the nation. Part of that lasting appeal is also due to the fact that it’s the shoe Mike had on in Space Jam, cementing them in the imaginations of an entire generation of kids forever.
4. Air Jordan IV
“Yo man, your Jordans are fucked up!” By 1989, Air Jordans had become so ingrained in the culture—a shorthand for excellence—that they could anchor a pivotal scene in one of the best movies of the decade. As Jordan’s high-flying antics started to turn heads overseas, the IV became the first Js to get a global release, coinciding with Tinker Hatfield really coming into his own and flexing his muscles: experimenting with mesh and molded plastics, and using nubuck leather on a basketball shoe for the very first time. Outside of its Do the Right Thing cameo, the IV’s earned their place in history when MJ hit The Shot in them, meaning you’d do well to steer clear of rocking these anywhere in Ohio.
5. Air Jordan VI
Supposedly, Tinker Hatfield was inspired by Jordan’s Porsche 911 while designing the VI. Which seems...wrong, because the 911 is sleek and bulbous and a paragon of timeless design, and the Air Jordan VI is all hard angles, a Frankensteined mishmash of materials, and an unmistakable product of its era. Whatever its origins, it’s a beautiful sneaker—the model His Airness laced up to capture his first ring, and the first to introduce two technologies that would go on to be borrowed by countless future hoops shoes: a neoprene sleeve lining and a two-hole pull on the tongue for easier entry.