MJ's shoes still making their mark, 25 years after debut

"Is it the shoes? It's gotta be the shoes. You sure it's not the shoes? Money, it's gotta be the shoes!"

Of course it wasn't the shoes. It was the guy wearing them. For all the high concepts, modern technology and Corinthian leather that went into the size 13s where rubber met the hardwood, you get that feeling that an old pair of canvas Chuck Taylors would have worked out just about as well for Michael Jordan. In terms of, you know, six NBA championships, 10 scoring titles, 14 All-Star selections, two Olympic gold medals, the highest scoring average (30.12) in NBA history, five Most Valuable Player awards, a "Go Directly to Springfield'' card and the unprecedented popularity and success he achieved in gyms and boardrooms around the globe.

Still, he did have help. While Scottie Pippen was Jordan's best-known and most reliable sidekick through those years, the Air Jordan line of sneakers were his main kicks.

Twenty-five years ago this season, the first edition of what has become a billion-dollar brand for Nike made its debut on the feet of the Chicago Bulls' prized rookie. By the All-Star break of 1984-85, Jordan's unique sneakers had gone from simply setting a milestone in athletic commercial endorsement circles to making news and possibly altering both the league's midseason classic and eventual NBA history. (How's that for a Madison Avenue-style boast?)

Air Jordans created a buzz over something (gym shoes) that never before had been particularly buzz-worthy. The buzz blended in two-part harmony with the noise Jordan was making on courts throughout the land with his scoring, his skills, his style. Fans could only guess at what he and the Bulls eventually would accomplish. But those shoes were right there, in the spotlight, often at eye-level (whenever Jordan levitated).

I was sitting courtside, working a Bucks game for Milwaukee's primary newspaper, when Jordan threw those shoes in a duffel for the bus ride 90 miles north of Chicago on I-94.

Here are some first impressions from those sneaker-simpler times, as they appeared in print the next day:

Contrary to popular belief, Michael Jordan is not the most incredible, the most colorful, the most amazing, the most flashy or the most mind-boggling thing in the NBA. His shoes are ... The only thing those sneakers have more of than adjectives is colors. Red and white and black all over, with coordinated laces and labels and swooshes, they look like a cross between the leftovers in the back of Elton John's closest and a pair of rentals from [the local bowling alley]. Finally, something for Leroy Nieman to paint in ... [Jordan], with his seven-figure endorsement contract and [four-foot] vertical leap, is literally and figuratively taking basketball shoes where no tennis shoes have tread before.

The column ran with a big photo of Jordan's feet. Bookending it, on the other side of the type, was a photo of ... Bulls teammate Quintin Dailey's feet?

There was Quintin Dailey trotting around in a pair of black-and-gray monstrosities that, besides being ugly, were simply too formal for an afternoon game.

I found out after the game -- not surprising with a guy whose NBA career was marked by several bouts of knuckleheadedness -- that Dailey had forgotten to pack his game shoes. Thus he was forced to wear his "walkin' around shoes,'' he told me.

Jordan and Nike had unveiled the shoes in a November game at Philadelphia. The NBA wasn't pleased and threatened the Bulls and Jordan with a $5,000 fine for every game in which he wore them. Nike was all too pleased to sign the checks -- it couldn't buy advertising to match that! -- though the league, the shoemaker and the budding superstar reportedly reached an agreement before penalties actually were levied. More from that day in early 1985:

The NBA has since approved the shoes. That leaves Jordan's peers. There has been some speculation that the fancy footwear might offend players as being too individualistic ... Especially on a rookie. "I am very conscious of not being a prima donna,'' said Jordan, who knows it could be a problem. "I wouldn't want that if I were a veteran, and I try to put myself in our veterans' shoes.''

So to speak, anyway. Turns out, some NBA veterans did take umbrage at Jordan's look-at-me sneakers at the 1985 All-Star Game. The rookie's Nike warm-up suit and gold chains, worn in place of traditional All-Star apparel or just his Chicago uniform during the dunk contest on Saturday, also rankled some, as if the new guy was flaunting his enormous endorsement potential at a point where he should have been, oh, a little more humble.

That led to the legendary and notorious "freeze out'' of Jordan, allegedly orchestrated by (and long denied by) Isiah Thomas and Magic Johnson. The point guards from the East and West squads, respectively, managed to keep the ball away from Jordan for long stretches, so said whisperers afterward.

Fact? Fiction? What mattered was that Jordan -- who finished with seven points and had only nine field-goal attempts (seventh-most on the East) -- believed the rumor.

So beyond the West's 140-129 victory -- Jordan might have closed that gap all by himself, if he'd gotten the ball more -- there was the gargantuan chip it put on his shoulder. It took a while, but he eventually went through Thomas' Detroit team to begin Chicago's championship run and, in his first Finals in 1991, smacked down Johnson's Lakers. Don't forget the 1992 Olympics, either, when Jordan was reputed to have blackballed Thomas from the original Dream Team.

Fact? Fiction? Anyone who recalls Jordan's Hall of Fame acceptance speech from last fall surely can believe in the grudges.

Still, not all of the NBA's top stars were bothered by Jordan-mania. Sidney Moncrief, the classy Milwaukee shooting guard, told me a few days after his first glimpse of Air Jordans: "With a player of that stature, it creates excitement for him to wear something different. I like 'em. I think it's good for basketball. It's certainly good for the shoe company.''

You think? The treadmarks Jordan and Nike laid down then allows the manufacturer/marketer from that lush "campus'' in Beaverton, Ore., to throw silly ad copy at us now without worrying that he might respond with a collective "Whaaa?'' Consider this on the latest edition, the Air Jordan 2010: "[Designers took] the literal interpretation of Jordan's ability to see through his opponents by creating the brand's first see-through performance basketball shoe featuring a unique transparent thermoplastic urethane (TPU) window.''

Right. And consumers nod knowingly and line up to spend $170, the suggested retail price.

Still, those sneaker guys aren't always so smart. If they were, it wouldn't have taken them so long to pump out a pair that took advantage of Jordan's most obvious trademark. It wasn't until the Air Jordan XV in 2000 -- well after Jordan had retired for the second of three times -- that they made the shoe's tongues stick out.

Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA for 25 years. You can e-mail him here.

The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting.