Jordan was back for real and he led the Bulls to yet another NBA victory. He also
became the second man to ever win Most Valuable Player awards for the regular season,
All-Star Game and NBA Finals in the same season. He averaged 30.4 points per game and
scored 40 or more points in nine games. What a come back!
Triple come back
If Jordan was back, so was Tinker Hatfield. A terrific design with a new patent leather and
the return of the clear rubber sole made the Air Jordan XI the most appreciated Air Jordan
model ever released.
But when the design stunned everyone, the durability and quality was disappointing. Again
the clear rubber soles easily yellowed and the patent leather also tended to crack up and/or
easily get scratched. Top design - lacking quality
With the XI's we also saw the return of low-tops. Something that would follow the Air Jordan's
all the way to the XVI's (though skipping the XII's).
Back to the banning days
Michael was fined $5000 per game during the semifinals in 1995 for wearing the white/black-dk concord ones.
He wore them twice and this was
looked upon as uniform violation as the rest of the Bulls wore entirely black shoes.
(This kind of brings back memories from when the I's were banned from the NBA.)
Being fined two games was enough though and the next game he wore
Anfernee Hardaway's shoes.
But did Nike enjoy MJ not wearing AJ's? Probably not as he got the
"Space Jam's" for the remaining games. The same shoes that
could also be seen in the movie Space Jam
Retro fever
When the XI's were retroed in 2000-2001 they would prove to become the
retro that sold in the highest quantity ever and also the fastest
selling Air Jordan's of all time.
