Andrew Rizzo Nike’s Frank Cooke has all but confirmed the return of a ’90s basketball gem. The Nike Air Raid II, a mid-’90s hoops shoe that has never received a proper retro run, appears to be making its way back into the public eye after Cooke teased it on Instagram.
Cooke’s social accounts have become a reliable source for early looks since he rejoined the Beaverton brand, from patent leather Forces and new GT Future colorways to retro Jordans and more. His latest teaser shows the backside of the Air Raid II “Live Together, Play Together” aka “Urban Jungle Gym” from the original run, part of one of Nike’s defining ’90s advertising campaigns. Created by Spike Lee, the commercials were characterized by bold, colorful Afrocentric geometric patterns and streetball imagery that carried over from the ads to the sneakers themselves.
The campaign, and this particular colorway, make a whole lot more sense with some context about the line itself. The original Air Raid was positioned as the “street” alternative to Nike’s other basketball models at the time, explicitly billed as being “for outdoors use only.” While the original has returned several times over the years, the Air Raid II has remained buried deep in the archive until now.
No official information regarding the Nike Air Raid II retro run has surfaced yet, though Cooke’s teaser suggests the model is at least back on the team’s radar. If it’s indeed progressing through the retro development process, it could still be a ways out, with a late 2027/early 2028 release being a reasonable possibility given what we know about the sneaker production timeline.
Check out detailed images of the original Nike Air Raid II below and keep our Sneaker Release Dates page bookmarked for all the latest.
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