Air Jordan 10 (X):

About Air Jordan 10 (X)

The Air Jordan 10 was released in 1994-95 despite Jordan’s absense from the NBA. The Air Jordan 10 featured a different shape than the previous Jordan shoes did. Too bad for Mike (but good for all of his followers), baseball went on strike thus leaving Jordan hanging with nothing to do – that is if he didn’t return to the NBA. Sure enough, Jordan shocked everyone when he returned from retirement on March 19, 1995. Since his jersey had been retired, he had to go back onto the court wearing #45 until the technicalities were cleared out of the way. It seemed as if Nike wasn’t expecting to see Jordan back in the game so soon. Nike started to re-release older model’s of the Air Jordan series (Air Jordan 1, Air Jordan 2, Air Jordan 3) and the Air Jordan 10 soles featured an honor or an award from each year Michael had spent in the NBA. Apart from these soles the design was no real surprise and was overall very plain. Hatfield picked up a few design elements from previous models and you could see some obvious signs of influence from the Air Jordan 3′s, the Air Jordan 5′s and the Air Jordan 6′s. Samplemania ContinuesIf the Air Jordan 9′s had a lot of different samples, the Air Jordan 10′s were even worse. There were a lot of different team colors that were produced in limited quantities and there were samples with numbers for a lot of different players in the NBA. As Michael wore number 45 when he returned there were also samples with #45 stitched on the shoes.FINALLY RETROS! About every Jordan 10 fan was pulling their hair out by the time that Nike released retro Jordan 10′s. May 3, 2005 was the launch date which was about 10 years after they were last sold. The Jordan 10′s were the oldest shoes to be retroed older than the Air Jordan 13′s. The Air Jordan 10 was retroed only one time, but there are rumors of them coming again in 2008. Check out the Air Jordan Release Dates page for more info.

Michael Jordan was now away from the game of basketball, and he began a relatively short lived career in baseball. Many people thought the Air Jordan line was done, even Nike, but Tinker Hatfield had a different thought. The Air Jordan X was the first model that Michael Jordan did not approve, he had talked to Tinker at the beginning stages of development, but nothing was set in stone. The quality of the shoe was up to par with huarache inner sleeve, leather uppers and quick lace system, but something was not right with them. When the Air Jordan X was released, a lot of the models had a strap of leather going across the top of the toe, but then Nike came out with a clean-toed version (just how Michael liked his shoes). When Michael returned to the NBA he did wear the Jordan 10, with his new number “45″ on the side. Since Tinker and the people at Nike really thought that MJ was hanging the towel up for good, they wanted to show appreciation to what Michael had accomplished in his career.

In 1994 when the original release of the Air Jordan 10 came out, a total of three models released, and a regional pack which had five different color ways representing five selected teams. Those lucky teams are – Sacramento Kings, New York Knicks, Orlando Magic, Seattle Supersonics and the Chicago Bulls, and a pair of Air Jordan X cleats were released, all retailing at $125.00. When 2005 hit Jordan Brand knew it was time to re-release the Air Jordan X, so they sold for $125.00 and a total of 7 color ways and two of them were for women.