All-Star Weekend: 4 Jordans in 3 Days

Four marquee Jordans. A Kobe 6. A Swarovski collab at $1,005. All in 72 hours, all in Los Angeles, all during NBA All-Star Weekend.

Jordan Brand didn't space these out. Didn't stagger the hype. Just pointed everything at one city over one weekend and let fans figure out the math.

Here's the damage report.

Release-by-Release: The 72-Hour Assault

Thursday, Feb 12: Air Jordan 1 High OG "All-Star"

The appetizer. White tumbled leather, fuzzy grey suede overlays, star-shaped cutouts replacing standard toe-box perforations, gold-plated Wings logo, icy translucent outsole. Clean shoe. Nice shoe. Absolutely buried by everything that followed.

Dropping a full day before the official ASW schedule meant this shoe got its moment, for about twelve hours. By Friday morning, nobody was talking about it.

Platform experience: Smooth. Wide release, minimal friction, no crash reports. The easiest cop of the weekend, which, in sneaker culture, is not exactly a compliment.

Friday, Feb 13: Nike Kobe 6 Protro "3D Hollywood"

The emotional gut-punch.

A Protro rebuild of the 2011 original that Kobe Bryant wore during his hand-and-footprint ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theatre during that year's LA All-Star Weekend. Same mismatched red/blue anaglyph design mimicking 3D glasses. Upgraded Cushlon midsole, larger Zoom Turbo forefoot unit, reworked outsole rubber. Each pair ships with actual 3D glasses and special All-Star packaging. The inner tongue reads "2026" split by Kobe's sheath logo.

Sneaker Bar Detroit called it "more of a time capsule than a remake." Hard to argue. The Kobe 6 Protro is already the most-played shoe in the NBA — and it's not close.

"Despite first releasing in 2010, the Kobe 6, now in its protro form, accounted for five of the top six sneakers in terms of minutes played in the NBA last month."

— Andy Silva, DraftKings Network

Dropping this shoe in Los Angeles, at All-Star Weekend, with the MVP trophy now carrying his name? That's not a product launch. That's a pilgrimage.

Platform experience: No widespread crashes reported. Stock levels appear to have been calibrated well. Strong demand, but most people who showed up on time got a pair.

Saturday, Feb 14: Air Jordan 6 "Infrared Salesman" + AJ6 "Bin 23"

The headliner. And the story is genuinely wild.

In 1999, a salesman sample appeared in a seasonal preview catalog that reversed the legendary Black/Infrared AJ6 color blocking, spreading Light Crimson across the full midsole instead. It was pulled from production almost immediately. For 27 years, this shoe existed as a whispered folk tale. A myth. Sneaker Freaker noted it had been "a whispered folk tale in the community" since the early 2000s.

"We've been chasing the Air Jordan 6 'Infrared Salesman' since the early 2000s. Back then, the reverse 'Infrared' AJ6 was more myth than reality. After 25 years of whispers and what-ifs, the once-mythical AJ6 is finally materializing — and it's a must-cop."

— Kenneth Brown, Athlon Sports

Jordan Brand reverse-engineered the exact Infrared pigment by comparing 1991 and 2000 pairs side by side. It's the first non-collaboration AJ6 to feature an updated shape mimicking the original 1991 silhouette: modified internal bootie, tongue raised 2mm, slanted toe box. The most structurally faithful AJ6 retro ever produced.

They dropped it on Valentine's Day. On All-Star Saturday Night. After a two-week "Generational Greatness" campaign that debuted during the Grammys with Niecy Nash stepping into Little Richard's genie role from the iconic 1991 commercial, alongside WNBA stars and Teyana Taylor. Terrance Harvey, Jordan Brand's expert in streetwear footwear product management, framed it officially: "It's the centerpiece of the Infrared Collection. MJ won his first championship in this colorway, and since then, it has represented greatness."

The accompanying Bin 23 (2,300 pairs at $355, bringing back the premium Bin series after 15 years) was the ultra-limited cherry on top. Good luck.

Platform experience: SNKRS Pass confirmed for both an Inglewood drop and a New York 1 PM EST release. No major crash reports on the wide release. The Bin 23 was effectively a lottery ticket with worse odds.

Friday-Saturday: Air Jordan 4 "Lakeshow" (Early Access)

The sleeper. Imperial Purple nubuck upper with Varsity Maize accents. A tribute to the host city without official Lakers branding, which somehow makes it cooler. The only comparable AJ4 in this colorway? The Travis Scott × AJ4 "Purple Suede" friends-and-family edition, which trades in five figures.

If you weren't physically in Los Angeles, you didn't get these. Period. Global release isn't until March 7, which means for the next three weeks, every ASW pair exists in a scarcity vacuum. Athlon Sports projected resale would "move to double or more of the retail tag, especially in core men's sizes." Jordan 4 releases historically average approximately 70% above retail on secondary markets.

Platform experience: In-person only. You had to be there.

Platform Report Card

Platform	Grade	Notes
SNKRS App	B+	No widespread crashes. The pivot to in-person channels likely saved the app from itself.
Jordan House (Inglewood)	A	The MVP. Community-first brand hub built with Inglewood Unified School District, staying post-ASW for youth clinics and swap meets.
Foot Locker "Takeover"	B+	Multi-brand pop-up beside Crypto.com Arena. Ambitious. Crowded. Functional.
Shoe Palace	B	30+ events and 21 releases across six LA locations. Spread thin but pulled it off.
SNKRS Cafeteria at The Shaw	B	Digital-meets-physical hub in Downtown LA. Fun if you had the stamina. Punishing if you didn't.
Online-only shoppers	D	Premium product was overwhelmingly allocated to physical LA channels. If you weren't in the city, you got scraps.

No major technical failures across the weekend. But that's not because the platforms suddenly got good at handling hype. Jordan Brand funneled the heaviest product through in-person channels, effectively taking the pressure off digital infrastructure by making the drops physically gated. As Sole Retriever put it: "The sneaker industry is back outside."

What did "back outside" actually look like?

"Sneakerheads lined up for hours hoping to secure multiple pairs from the selection. Limited quantities meant not everyone left satisfied despite the incredible stock."

— Ben Atkinson, HotNewHipHop

Winner and Loser

Winner: Air Jordan 6 "Infrared Salesman." The storytelling won. A 27-year myth, a Grammy-debuting campaign, Niecy Nash channeling Little Richard, a faithful 1991-spec retro, and a Valentine's Day/All-Star Saturday Night drop date. As Uproxx/SNX put it: "No amount of premium materials is enough to surpass a legendary colorway." Jordan Brand gave this shoe every possible advantage: cultural context, emotional weight, heritage credibility. And delivered it as a wide release so fans could actually own the moment. That's the rare combination of maximum hype and maximum access.

Loser: Air Jordan 1 High OG "All-Star." A perfectly fine shoe that got obliterated by timing. No major campaign support, wide general release, dropped a day before the real festivities. It signaled "filler" even if the design was solid.

Resale Roundup

Early data, 48 hours post-release. Most pairs are still in transit to authentication centers. Treat these as directional, not definitive.

Shoe	Retail	Early Resale (StockX)	Premium	Notes
AJ1 "All-Star"	$185	~$185-$200	0-8%	Wide release. Trading near retail. No heat.
Kobe 6 Protro "3D Hollywood"	$200	~$218	~9%	Adequate stock met strong demand. OG 2011 pairs still command $1,400.
AJ6 "Infrared Salesman"	$215	~$215-$240	0-12%	Wide release held prices down. Toddler sizes showing 40% premium. Community projected $300-$400 as supply clears.
AJ4 "Lakeshow"	$220	~$350-$450+	59-105%	The resale winner. LA-only scarcity vacuum until March 7 global drop resets supply.
AJ6 "Bin 23"	$355	~$700-$1,000+ (projected)	97-182%	2,300 pairs worldwide. Authenticated sales still flowing in.

The AJ4 "Lakeshow" is the clear investment play. Three weeks of LA-exclusive scarcity before the global release moderates prices. The AJ6 "Salesman" told the better story, but Jordan Brand chose accessibility over artificial scarcity, a decision that limits resale premiums but maximized the number of people who actually got to own a piece of history. Respect that choice or don't. We do.

The Fanfare Take: Concentrated Releases Hurt Fans

Here's the uncomfortable question: did Jordan Brand's weekend help fans, or just overwhelm them?

"The 2026 NBA All Star Weekend in Los Angeles felt like it actually had stakes again."

— Joseph Brabo, Respect My Region

It did. But stakes cut both ways. The physical pivot was smart. Genuinely. Jordan House in Inglewood was a community-first space done right, built with the school district, designed to outlast the weekend, placed in the neighborhood rather than on a Sunset Blvd rooftop. No widespread SNKRS crashes. No major technical meltdowns. On infrastructure alone, this was a good weekend.

But stacking four marquee Jordans, a Kobe 6, and a Swarovski collab into 72 hours created a forced-choice problem that punished the exact fans Jordan Brand claims to celebrate. Most people picked one or two shots and abandoned the rest. The completionists were left sprinting across a city that averages 45-minute commutes on a good day, during a weekend when half a million extra people descended for the game.

The AJ1 "All-Star" got no room to breathe. The Kobe 6's emotional weight got compressed into a single news cycle. The AJ4 "Lakeshow" was gatekept behind geography. And the Bin 23? Functionally a myth with a buy button.

Concentrated releases generate headlines. They create spectacle. They look great in a Footwear News recap. But for the individual fan (the person who loves the brand, follows the culture, and actually wants to wear the shoes) they create an impossible math problem.

Frenzy is a feature. Overwhelming your most loyal customers is a bug.

The brands that win long-term aren't the ones that drop the most product in the shortest window. They're the ones who give every release room to be a moment, give every fan a real shot, and build infrastructure that makes the experience feel fair even when demand outstrips supply by orders of magnitude.

Jordan Brand proved this weekend that the sneaker event isn't dead. It just needed to leave the app. Now the next step: make sure leaving the app doesn't mean leaving most fans behind.

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Fanfare builds drop infrastructure that gives real fans a real shot, whether there are four releases in three days or one release that matters. No bots. No crashed servers. No impossible math. Just fair, transparent, fan-first experiences. Let's talk.