The Air Jordan 4 took the world by storm in 1989. Along with a career season came a career sneaker.

Tinker Hatfield once again designed this shoe. The Air Jordan 4 featured many new design concepts. First, the straps on the side for increased ankle support. It was nearly impossible for MJ to roll his ankle in these shoes. The Air Jordan 4 again featured the air sole heel for added cushioning and a full length midsole. In the White/Black-Cement, the shoe featured a unique texturing nicknamed Cookies & Cream for its striking resemblance. The Air Jordan 4 was another masterpiece to the Jordan lineup.

Mike flies to new heights

While wearing the Air Jordan 4, Michael Jordan reached new points in his career. Taking home another scoring title with 32.5 points per game, Jordan also appeared in the All-Star Game, First Team NBA, and All-Defense. This year was arguably Jordan's best year despite no championship.

It was in the Air Jordan 4 that Jordan made the shot which was a series winning shot at the buzzer to advance the Bulls to the next round in a do or die situation.

Spike likes Mike

Nike continued the Jordan 4 commercials with Mars Blackmon (Spike Lee) and created the famous Can/Can't TV commercial. Spike Lee really liked these shoes personally and gave them some extra promotion in his movie Do The Right Thing.

A classic scene for all AJ fans is when one of the persons in the movie gets his brand new AJ IV's scuffed by a bicycle rider and flips out about it, places his shoe upon a fire-hydrant and cleans it with a toothbrush. Rent the movie today if you haven't it!

Retros get their big break

Unlike the first series of retro Jordan's in the mid-90s, the retro Jordan's were an incredible success starting with the Retro Air Jordan 4 in 1999. When the Air Jordan 4 were retroed 1999 in white/black and black/cement grey it was crazy. Stores sold out after a few hours and everyone seemed to want a pair. As you can see a totally different approach to when the Air Jordan I, Air Jordan II and Air Jordan III were first retroed.

Nike, or Jordan Brand, realized that this was a golden opportunity to cash in so they started releasing so called Retro+ models. These had a similar design to the original but featured new colors or some minor design changes. There have been different reactions to the Retro+ models and not all of them have been positive but they seemed to sell pretty well so probably most people were happy with them.

The Air Jordan 4 is also the first laser etched Jordan retros to be released. An online exclusive created 2 days of chaos across the US as thousands of Jordan heads tried to logon to Nikes website to buy the limited sneakers. Nike released 2 colors termed thunder (Black/Yellow) and lightning (Yellow/Black). The prices were $500 and $250 respectively. Despite anger on the part of many Jordan collectors, both color ways sold out.