AIR JORDAN 3 BLACK CEMENT - NOVEMBER 23, 2024

Doesn’t that make your point moot then?

Nope. I'm a basketball junkie and nerd. I buy more than just Jordans, and I can tell you the facts about everything in my closet cause I like the history of it just as much as how it looks. None of us ON NT are the average sneaker consumer. I spend hours on ebay looking for OG Nike tracksuits and Jordan tracksuits to go with my retros. I love old stuff and I love basketball and the late 80's-90's made the best sneakers.

My point was kids aren't buying Jordans because of Michael Jordan. They buy Jordans because of that's what they're told is the "cool" it shoe same way they flocked to dunks, or sambas, or Asics or w/e flavor of the month shoe there is.

In almost every Jordan retro thread up here you have members giving full stories about the first time they saw the shoe as a kid, stories about their parents or loved one taking them to the mall or footlocker to get it, or on the flipside not being able to purchase it as a child and can now. Nothing about reselling the shoe or how much you can flip it for, just pure nostalgia.

Speaking for me personally I don't have those same feelings when I see a Jordan retro come back, I didn't see Mike play, I wasn't around for those Chicago Bulls teams I don't have that connection to the shoes no matter how much I like them. ON the flipside when the Lebron 8 South Beaches, Lebron 9 Big Bangs, KD IV's retro'd it finally clicked about how anal and important it was for the retro's to be like the OG's I used to always see Older NT members complain about with Jordan retros. Those were the shoes of my childhood I loved and wanted so badly that took me back to feeling like I was in high school again it made sense.

Idk maybe I'm wrong and we'll see..I just don't see this generation having any actual tie to the sneakers outside of the price they resell for on stockx. I teach high school and I wear sneakers to work almost every day. Most common question I get, "What's your most expensive sneaker".

Not your favorite, not the oldest, not the one that got you into collecting. The most expensive.
 
I'm glad some of these shoe tubers are putting the 18s in high regard ez cop for the 24s. Although some of these tubers are cringe to watch they sway the sheep thoughts on what they might buy
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I think it's also worth pointing out that the expectation 13-18 year olds give a flying f about history is completely unrealistic. Dudes who grew up when MJ played bought the shoes because of the man himself, but they also bought them because they were cool. There were dudes wearing J's as teenagers who couldn't tell you in much detail anything about MJ's career other than he won 6 titles.

I could easily see a portion of the kids wearing them today becoming more concerned with the history of the shoes and player as they get to be adults if they've invested so much time and money into the product. Young hobbyists become old hobbyists and feel more elitist the older they get, the more they've spent, the greater their self-importance in the community that surrounds the hobby.

If history shows anything it's that way more people care about preserving the history of these shoes today than anyone ever would have thought when MJ retired the first time, after the first retros came out, after his second run with the Bulls, after the second run of OG retros from 99-01. And there was almost no financial motivation to hang onto the shoes from that time period compared to the understood and proven market for them today.
 
Why do y'all keep speaking on JB not lasting when it's literally the most profitable show line by a mile. I think y'all are just getting older and projecting your own pessimism about the brand onto others.
I think what people are saying is that the dynamic of the brand will change, not that it’s going to go out of business or suddenly become a budget brand and be sold for a few bucks/pair lol

When MJ was playing all these retro models were considered performance models and retros themselves didn’t exist until 1994 (and that too, didn’t return until 1999) so the brand itself has gone through some of these changes over the years.

Remember when the brand got heavy into pushing a ton of AF1 fusions and Team Js instead of just retros and the latest performance flagship model? We still see some of that now but there has definitely been a dynamic shift in that too since the mid-2000s as well.
 
I do see the brand contracting in some time though. Almost like a novelty brand.
Sure, but if they end up contracting after being around 50 years that's still unprecedented for almost any piece of fashion, let alone sneakers. It's almost like guys are projecting their own need for the shoes to remain relevant in only a particular context - that has long passed - onto the brand and current generation of consumer.

I understand the desire for the product to strive for accuracy to the originals for a number of reasons, but it'll take decades for Nike to even return to the comparatively piddly *** numbers they were selling in the 90's. The population has gone up by almost 50% since Jordans released. The sneaker market has grown exponentially. So even that angle of caring about the brand's sales as some metric that means something today is rather absurd.
 
Yea JB ain’t going anywhere any time soon. The kids may not wear them for the same reasons an old fart like me does, but nevertheless I see kids wearing them everywhere in the wild. Jordan’s are here to stay for the foreseeable future.
 
The people who know Jordans around NYC are mainly the ones wearing them. Its basically sneaker heads, resellers, and young people. Once in a while I see an Og wear some retro sneakers and I say nice kicks, sometimes. Everyone in between the youth and Ogs are wearing other brands like NB, Adidas, Hokas, Timberlands, clogs or crocs :lol:, or regular Af1, gr dunks.

The only time I see more people wearing Jordans is if they recently released. But in between release dates from one Jordan to the next Jordan dropping, I don’t see them as often in NYC compared to 10-20 years ago, in my experience.
 
All I see when I go outside is crocs, slides, asics/NB.

Cats don’t give a damn about jays in the masses anymore.
 
Houston is different because you see a little bit of everything.

ASICS/NB is definitely trending here, but not to the point where it’s wiped out Jordan wearers.
 
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Selling and collecting it, is one thing. Rocking them or using them is another. How many DS pairs that have been bought or sold just sitting idle :lol:. $125-$150-$249 dollar items just sitting and not being represented outside. Nike got their money, and our Nike/Jays are chilling at home or your storage unit :lol:. We like taking pictures though.
 
I've thought for a while now...like after mj passes of course it'll prolly boom hard again but once all that settles....I can see JB just going the vans/converse route with jordan 1s. Those will forever be timeless....I can see them being cheaper and just everyday shoes you get at the mall....then when they have retros back like 4..5s etc..it'll be special af prolly super limited.

I'd guess what I'm guessing above will take place 20 to 30 years from now or less

1st last thing....I do think outta this whole modern era...the sbb 1 OG 2015 will stand over em all. It'll resale the most 20 years later and people will remember how legendary it was even with the 2025 reissue
 
The numbers for all of these brands are publicly info. JB is literally billions ahead of the next closest seller... So homie's argument is "in my bubble I don't see jays therefore they're gonna be gone in 10 years."
 
1s and 4s I can see holding on a lil longer than 10 years from now.

Maybe 11s, although I been over 11s.

But everything else will be wrap.
 
The numbers for all of these brands are publicly info. JB is literally billions ahead of the next closest seller... So homie's argument is "in my bubble I don't see jays therefore they're gonna be gone in 10 years."

Post the numbers bruh since they so public
 
I think the rising price point is what's causing younger kids to diversify their sneaker collections more than anything.

My son is 18 and wears a little bit of everything though. J's, Sambas, NB's, Crocs, and Birkenstocks are his usual rotation right now. All the latter are cheaper than J's.
 
Also kids now are dressing down and very relaxed....it's not sauced up swag like it once was...that plays a huge part in it. The baggy 90s look will fade again and tight jeans and 11s will return....I can see that happening by 2030....travis scott is kind of the blame for this whole style you see now with vintage shirts baggy clothes etc. Idk....wear what you like but is hard to not see it and go hmmmm lol
 
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