Nice Kicks: Throughout the Air Jordan 2012 design process, did you consider the advice and opinions of any other Jordan Brand member besides Michael Jordan?
Tinker Hatfield: Well, Tom Luedecke talked to Melo and Chris Paul about it, but I’m not sure if he talked to anybody else. I talked to D-Wade and also Michael, but mostly Michael. Dwyane is a pretty sharp guy. I like talking to him. Those guys know it’s MJ’s shoe, so they don’t get too into it. I mean, a little bit but not much.
Nice Kicks: Seeing that Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony all have signature sneakers, who do you suspect will wear the Air Jordan 2012 on court in the NBA?
Tinker Hatfield: That’s a really great question because if you talk to MJ he’ll say nobody is good enough to wear them. He’s just talking trash though. The reality is, normally we’ll get D-Wade to wear them one game, and maybe CP to wear it one game. These shoes are so expensive. The make of these shoes is higher than any other basketball shoe, and the engineering is so perfect that we’re not trying to make a lot of these. We want to keep them more special. Also, we don’t want to jeopardize the sales of other shoes by doing too many of any one thing. We’re trying to be real smart about that.
Nice Kicks: Where do you draw the line of keeping the Air Jordan 2012 exclusive all while making it available with a plethora of custom options on NikeiD?
Tinker Hatfield: It’ll go on NikeiD, but people will pay a premium for that, too. We used to do a million and a half pairs of Jordans, you know? For the Jordan 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11s, we made about a million pairs of those during the years they came out, which was great because we didn’t have all of these other signature athletes. But now, when you think about it, we have all of these other athletes in Jordan and Nike, so we don’t want to go out and sell a million pairs of one style. It might impact how successful everything is. Plus, we want these to be so cool. Not everybody on the block will have these. By not making a lot, it kind of keeps the interest higher, and it’s a bit of a strategy.
