Next week, Nike’s Jordan brand will release the Air Jordan 40, the latest model from the iconic basketball sneaker franchise originally introduced for Michael Jordan in 1985.
While the shoe is designed with on-court performance at the forefront, it’s also meant to stand out beyond the hardwood, with a sleek look and design ethos that Jordan Brand’s chief design officer, Jason Mayden, described as “effortless versatility.”
“Our product should be able to fly from the court to the classroom for a 16-year-old high school kid in Brooklyn,” said Mayden. “We know that this product has to exist in multiple modalities.”
On that front it has competition. For the first time in a long time, a new crop of basketball sneakers is managing to get shoppers’ attention with style as much as performance. There’s the AE 1, Adidas’ signature model for Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards, which sneaker outlets such as Complex and Nice Kicks dubbed 2024’s best release; Converse’s Shai 001, the shoe of Oklahoma City Thunder point guard and NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, which has generated excitement online despite not even being available to buy yet; and the A’One, Nike’s shoe for A’ja Wilson of the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces, sold out in three minutes on Nike’s digital channels in North America upon launch in May, with Nike announcing it would double production in coming seasons on its most recent earnings call.
Visually at least, the shoes are departures from the previous generation of performance basketball shoes, which — with a few exceptions, like Adidas’ Harden line — often had similar designs made up of a mesh upper, a few panels for support and an unremarkable midsole. The AE 1 shook up that design language with its honeycomb-esque shell. The Shai 001 has the feel of a futuristic low-top boot and closes with a zipper. Today, the trendiest basketball sneakers look refined, ditching tech-y athletic footwear aesthetics for more elegant silhouettes with lines akin to luxury automobiles.
“Five to 10 years ago, there was so much visible tech on the product, and it was quite hard to wear in a lifestyle way, even though it was loud and stood out on a basketball court,” said Myles O’Meally, a former Nike footwear developer who now runs the product design and engineering studio Areté.
The new wave of performance shoes faces an uphill battle to truly break out as fashion footwear, however. Although basketball sneakers have become cultural artifacts for sneakerheads, the most sought-after styles are all retro models. The shoes worn by today’s pro players have long since faded from the conversation when it comes to fashion and casual wear, with sales of the category falling.
According to the market research firm Circana, basketball shoe sales declined by 5 percent in 2024 and the market was down by 8 percent year-to-date in May 2025. (The category saw growth between 2022 and 2023, albeit only by 1 percent.) Beth Goldstein, Circana’s executive director and industry analyst for footwear and accessories, attributed the decline of basketball sneaker sales to the rise of running footwear that’s seeing strong growth from both performance-focused athletes and casual everyday sneaker wearers.
“Basketball sneakers don’t tend to make it beyond the court necessarily, despite all the buzz that basketball gets and all of the attention that athletes are now getting for what they wear off-court,” said Goldstein.
But while sales for basketball sneakers have been sluggish, sneaker enthusiasts, such as content creator Jacques Slade, believe the facelift they’re currently receiving could potentially lead to a pendulum shift.
“I don’t think people are just going to be wearing basketball shoes all of a sudden. But I do think that they are becoming a more viable option now,” said Slade.
New Players, New Opportunities
Slade believes performance basketball sneakers are in a transitional period, with designers beginning to produce designs that also speak to how contemporary basketball culture has embraced fashion in recent years.
“It’s almost like that first presentation of their performance product is actually in the walk-though to the game rather than the big reveal on the court,” said O’Meally, specifically referring to how Gilgeous-Alexander unveiled new colorways for the Shai 001 during pre-game tunnel walks. “Shai’s Converse shoe, the way that the technology has been integrated into that product, it really is quite easy to wear off the court.”
Much of what’s energising a new look for performance basketball shoes today is an emerging generation of basketball stars. Three of the young stars of this year’s NBA season — Edwards, Gilgeous-Alexander and the Pacers’ Tyrese Haliburton — all have their own signature shoes and undoubtedly want to mark their arrival with something that looks different.
Drew Haines, merchandising director for the resale marketplace StockX, said that while retro Air Jordan releases and Nike’s signature line for the late Kobe Bryant continue to be the most popular basketball franchises on StockX, new products that are performing well for the category include signature sneakers by emerging WNBA stars such as Sabrina Ionescu. He points out that Caitlin Clark’s take on Nike’s Kobe 5 Proto sneaker, released on Monday, sold out in minutes and is currently being traded for high premiums on StockX.
Along with a new crop of players there’s also a group of emerging sportswear brands. Anta, a Chinese company that just announced it would open its first US flagship in Beverly Hills this September, was the fastest growing sneaker brand on StockX in 2024, fueled by trades of Kyrie Irving’s signature Kai 1 sneaker that debuted in March 2024. Anta and emerging brands like Rigorer and 361 Degrees aren’t only gaining traction by producing signature sneakers with younger talent, such as Austin Reaves, and more established players, such as Nikola Jokić, but also by pushing newness in basketball sneaker design.
“You have companies that aren’t afraid to experiment and kind of push the limits because they’re trying to break into the market instead of trying to imitate what everybody else is doing,” said Slade.
How Form Meets Function
Even if casual shoppers aren’t rushing out to buy basketball sneakers in droves, the way performance products look still matters. As the basketball market becomes more fragmented, with even brands such as Skechers coming off the bench to launch their own basketball shoes in 2023, design and innovation is what can distinguish basketball sneakers beyond making a signature style with the NBA’s hottest draft pick.
“Innovation is important and these brands need to be developing something new, so they’re building new franchises for newer athletes, particularly in the women’s space, but also taking older ones and continuing to build on them,” said Goldstein of Circana.
At Jordan Brand, homing in on both innovation and heritage is key as it enters its 40th year in business. Mayden said that Micheal Jordan still provides input on his signature sneaker releases and continues to share insights on how basketball players move today. Mayden describes the design process as a combination of timeless narratives, emerging technologies and cultural nuance. And while the latter shapes the aesthetics and marketing around the sneaker, Mayden said it’s not about trading off between style or performance — though he finds it’s still important to start the design process by building off performance and athlete feedback rather than a look.
“We have to service how it works before we service how it looks,” said Mayden. “If you start with an aesthetic, you limit yourself and you potentially back into something that doesn’t serve the athlete’s desired needs.”
In recent years, sportswear brands such as Puma and Adidas have leaned into fashion by onboarding trendy designers such as Salehe Bembury, who created Puma’s Hali 1 for Tyrese Haliburton, and Jerry Lorenzo to design performance basketball footwear. But that struggle between addressing both form and function is one Lorenzo faced when designing fashion-forward performance basketball sneakers for Fear of God’s partnership with Adidas. As reported by Andscape, the first sneakers released in 2023, the Fear of God Athletics I, never made it into an NBA game. However, after more performance-focused adjustments were made for its successor, released in December, several NBA players ended up wearing them on court last season.
Even for sneakerheads who casually play basketball such as Slade, a shoe has to do everything to convince them to hit checkout.
“There’s too many options out there for basketball shoes for you to have to play in something uncomfortable,” said Slade. “You can also get anything within the last 10 years and it’ll perform pretty much on par with anything that’s released today. So it has to be attractive to my eye and it has to be comfortable.”
