20 Years Of Nike Basketball Design: Air Flightposite (1999)

After a fairly thorough excavation of the legendary 1995-96 season and its immediate followups, Nike Basketball continues its journey through the past two decades of excellence with the spiritual successor to yesterday’s entrant.  ’97’s Air Foamposite One set the bar with a then-record $170 MSRP and a design that remains ‘futuristic’ to this day, and two years later, Foamposite lead designer Eric Avar leveraged the technology to “create a seamless extension of your body.”  The Nike Air Flightposite was born two years later with a sleeker design inspired by classical anatomy drawings and a unique zipper enclosure that made it one of the smoothest basketball shoes ever created.  Click through to see more photos, sketches and words from the designer (conspicuous by a complete absence of Kevin Garnett references) and stick with Sneaker News for tomorrow’s look back over 20 years of Nike Basketball brilliance.