Matt Varga We’re barely off the ground with the Nike Ja 4 proper, but if there’s one thing Ja Morant has built up a reputation for in the past few years, it’s leaking the next steps. Though at the time of this writing only four colorways of Morant’s latest have hit the shelves, already we know from the horse’s mouth much of what’s in the pipeline, from the Nike Ja 4 “By You” to now, the Nike Ja 4 High.
To properly contextualize, early CAD-style renderings of this exact build were the first seeds of what the now-Trail Blazers point guard would receive when it came to his fourth signature shoe. However, the initial pairs have leaned into the low-top life that’s defined his first few sig shoes as well as the industry as a whole, truly ever since Kobe Bryant and his kicks helped normalize shortened performance once again.
Bucking that, the Nike Ja 4 High almost echoes a recent retro focus in Gary Payton’s Air Zoom Flight The Glove, no doubt the most iconic Swoosh product to carry this sort of wrap-around sheath. For Ja’s take on it, Morant’s triangular logo appears as a repeated motif, engulfing nearly all of the surface area save the JA-Frame, a spotlighted innovation on this shoe and one that maintains the spell-out motif it’s highlighted in the past two versions. Though not entirely revealed in this suite of teaser images, the actual body of the shoe inside follows the extended contours, uncoupled from the exteriors in this new composition.
According to those same initial leaks, the Nike Ja 4 High should debut this Holiday season in this “Halloween” colorway, clocking in at $180 Catch Ja’s advance looks ahead.
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