XX9 Vol.3 (RW)

I added another pair of the Air Jordan XX9 to my collection this week. I've covered how much I love the XX9 on multiple occasions, so when the Russell Westbrook edition ghost dropped this week I had to grab a pair. Luckily they released at House of Hoops in London, as the last couple of shoes I've wanted haven't released in the UK.

They're the player edition colourway that Russ wore for the All Star game this year. The only difference is that they have the RW logo on the tongue instead of the 23 that were on his original version, & instead of the orange pods on the sole they have the 30th anniversary Jordan logo.

I've already worn then once, and like the other XX9's the performance is awesome so it's great to have another pair to add to my basketball rotation.

Stuff I got in NY Part 3 (or stuff I tried to get but couldn't find so ordered when I got home)

Anyone who's been reading my blog recently will be well aware of my obsession with Russell Westbrook, which was only reinforced as Russ tore his way through teams in March & April while trying to drag the injury plagued Thunder into the playoffs.

As I mentioned in my All Star shorts post I don't really need anymore basketball jereseys, so a player tee was a much more wearable alternative. Unfortunately Westbrook tees were in short supply in New York. I found a couple in the Modell's opposite the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn but they only had xl's and double xl's. So I hit up every sports store we came across, but nowhere else had Russ shirts, just a whole bunch of Kevin Durant tees. I'm pretty sure we visited every sports store in Manhattan, but without any luck.

So I tried to find one online, but every online store was sold out in my size. I often find that stores that stock NBA gear only have a good size run at the beginning of the season, and if you try and get anything later in the season or during the playoffs they only have XXL's left, which has never made any sense to me, but they just never get re-stocks.

Fortunately once I was back in the UK I was able to do some more searching and finally found my size on ebay so ended up getting it shipped from the US to the UK. The Adidas NBA player tees are great quality, with a really nice three dimensional print effect that replicates the layers of sewn material that would make up the names & numbers. So while it wasn't easy to get, it was worth the effort to rep for Russ this summer.

XX9

Its been a while since my last blog post as the last month and a half have been crazy busy with work and moving house. But I'm back on top of things and have a bunch of stuff to blog about over the next couple of weeks. But way back at the end of March I spent a week in New York, and of course I spent a lot of time hunting for interesting sneakers, and the shoe I was particularly looking for was the Air Jordan XX9.

In February I wrote about how much I liked the XX9's that Russel Westbrook has been wearing, and my excitement for his debut Jordan brand signature shoe. However since then we found out that Russ's shoe is going to be a lifestyle shoe, and not a performance basketball shoe, which for me was really disappointing news, and made up my mind that I definitely wanted to get a pair of the XX9's.

I was very tempted by the white/silver All-Star colourway, but while visiting Flight Club I was able to find a pair of the legend blue/white/silver colour from the Gift of Flight pack. Flight Club is a consignment sneaker store, where for a fee they will sell your shoes, so have an incredible selection of rare and hard to find shoes. It was pretty impressive to see so many rare Jordans, LeBrons, and Yeezys, and even a pair of Freddy Kreuger SB dunks that are one of my all time grail shoes. I would definitely recommend visiting Flight Club just to see the array of amazing stuff they have.

The Ultimate Gift of Flight pack was a very limited pack that was released just before Christmas last year. It was made up of the XX9's and a pair of XI's in legend blue. Because XI's are so popular the pack was in huge demand and sold out instantly. However unlike most people who bought the pack for the XI's it was the XX9's that I'd wanted, especially as Russ wore that colour when the Thunder played on Christmas day. And luckily for me someone had decided to sell their XX9's separately from the pack, and because it's the shoe that's generally less popular I was able to get a super limited shoe at a great price.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I thought it was a shame that Nike never released one of the OKC Thunder colourways that Westbrook has been wearing, especially as the orange looks so great on them. However a trip to Nike town helped to solve this as I grabbed a pair of Nike Hyper Elite socks to go with them and give them the hit of orange they'd been missing. For anyone who plays basketball I'd definitely recommend the Nike Elite socks, they're incredibly comfortable and help to keep your feet feeling good during a hard game. I've played in the XX9 once so far, and I really loved them. The fit and traction were especially impressive, so much so that I'm really considering picking up another pair.

Crazy Russ...

Its been a quiet week or so with not much of note to blog about. I have some new sneakers on the way from the U.S which according to the tracking are somewhere between Kentucky and the UK, so I'll hopefully have a post about those sometime in the next week or so.

There was plenty of sneaker action coming out of the NBA All-Star weekend, but to be honest most of it didn't really excite me. All the All Star edition shoes that the players wore during the game were pretty forgettable, and most of the other sneaker attention was around the release of the adidas & Kanye West Yeezy shoe which was underwhelming to say the least.

However the one piece of news that really did catch my attention was the news that Russell Westbrook is getting his own Jordan signature shoe. Westbrook has easily been my favourite player to watch this year. With Kevin Durant missing a bunch of games with various injuries, Russ has had to carry the extra load for the Thunder and its been awesome to watch. He plays every game at 100 miles an hour and attacks the basket as if he's trying to kill it. He's just the most exciting player to watch at the moment, which was perfectly displayed on Sunday night as he dropped 41pts and walked away with the All Star MVP trophy.

Jordan XX9 Russell Westbrook Player Edition

I really loved the blue/orange version of the Jordan XX9 that Westbrook has worn for a lot of the season and I was really disappointed that it was never released. The XX9 from the Gift of Flight pack was close, but it missed the orange which really sets off the shoe. So I have high hopes for his signature shoe. Russ has one of the most unique styles in the NBA so hopefully this will translate to an exciting shoe with some adventurous design. Jordan Brands current range of signature shoes for Chris Paul & Carmelo Anthony are pretty underwhelming so lets hope they can come up with something special for Russell. 

I'd also really love to see a return to releasing signature shoes in players uniform colours. I miss the days when you knew a shoe would definitely get a release in a home & away colourway. I don't think the new Melo 11 has been available in Knicks colours at all which I think is a real miss. Either that or put them on Nike ID with some good colour blocking options in blue, orange & white and that should keep me happy. Apparently they're calling it the Jordan Westbrook 0 and it will be debuting in June, so we should see some early images sometime soon, lets hope it lives up to its potential.