Compelling Nikes for November

The Blogadier General Lists Five Compelling Nikes for the Month of November.

Basketball season is here, so Hyperdunks reign supreme. Honorable mentions go out to the Jordan III from the Jordan Collezione III/XX Countdown package and the Air Jordan II from the Jordan Collezione II/XXI Countdown package. The current makeups of the original Air Jordan fail to make this blog's list because Jordan Brand insists on adding a Jumpman logo to the heel counters, and the tongue tags are historically inaccurate and all wrong.

Nike currently offers a black canvas Air Jordan high top with a strap. The strap is a new and unusual addition to this historic shoe. As a purist, I should not like the strap. For some reason though, I find it to be a palatable and interesting addition, something different. Jumpmen and weird tongue tags do not agree with me at all.

Nike and Jordan Brand almost nailed this canvas Air Jordan, but they missed the branding on the strap. Since the shoe is a canvas Air Jordan, Nike should have revisited the AJKO branding that was used on the original canvas Air Jordans. An AJKO label would have enhanced this new shoe's authenticity and, hence, the shoe's value, making it more desirable. Nike and Jordan Brand miscalculated in a major way. This missed detail is tantamount to a mispelling on the top headline of a big-circulation daily newspaper. It is that big of a gaffe. The same error in judgement was committed on the shoe itself. All this does is create credibility problems for Nike management and the folks who manage Nike's branding.

This month's list contains the same models as October. The order has been rearranged in part because of the weather and the time of year, basketball season. Hyperdunks are the hottest general release athletic shoe on the market, and they hold the most relevance with the NBA season in full swing and college teams popping up on television.

The Air Pegasus celebrates its 25th anniversary. Nike has released new color schemes for the shoe and even a special edition 25th anniversary redesign with a Considered upper that resembles the original Air Pegasus from 1983. The Air Pegasus + 25 SE has the same sole as the standard Air Pegasus + 25 model.

Nike's third-generation Air Zoom Vomero makes the list because it fits the publisher's foot better than anything else on the market, save for the Air Zoom Vomero + 2.

The Jordan Ol' Skool II is a favorite on this blog because the design is rather clean and clever. It is too bad that the white, black and red version has to be defiled with vile white patent leather. How can you beat a shoe to death when it has prissy, glossy white patent leather that demands such respect and clean living? To top it off, the patent leather has glitter in the finish. Is this shoe meant for hard core ballers or eight-year-old girls in cute pink sweat suits and Cindy Brady pigtails? The leather looks great, but the Jordan Ol' Skool II is the wrong place to use it. Leave it up to Nike to do too much with a shoe when good old full grain leather would suffice.

The Lunar Trainer falls to fifth place on this list because it has a mesh upper and it is November. Mesh in November equals cold feet. This is why I chose to replace my second-generation Vomeros with third-generation Vomeros. I wanted the try the Lunar Trainer, but I am not putting up with mesh in the winter. It is not functional right now, and the Vomero has Zoom Air, which is still the best cushioning on the planet, beating Lunar Foam by miles.

Here are the rankings this month. All of these are men's sneakers.

1. Hyperdunks
2. Air Pegasus + 25
3. Air Zoom Vomero + 3
4. Jordan Ol' Skool II, black/varsity red/white in particular
5. Lunar Trainer (The publisher prefers the white version.)