March is right around the corner, and so is SXSW. The South by Nice Kicks 2012 Mixtape by Rapid Ric serves as a warm-up to the annual Austin festival and also as a preview to The Inaugural South By Nice Kicks Showcase. Both feature the likes of Action Bronson, Juicy J, Killa Kyleon, Emilio Rojas, Chevy Woods and many more. Download the mixtape here and mark your calendars for the concert on March 15th.

J. Cole, Ne-Yo, Common, Kevin Hart, and many other A-listers made the move from Celebrity Sneaker Stalker to Kicks On Court tonight. With that said, the star’s crossover success was out shined by Penny Hardaway and his “Galaxy” Nike Air Foamposite Ones. If rocking the biggest release of the year on court wasn’t enough, he out did himself by breaking out a white-based PE of his famous Foamposite One for the second half. Check out what the celebs and legends wore in this All-Star weekend edition of Kicks on Court.

Tinker Hatfield unveiled an abundance of information pertaining to the Air Jordan 2012 at the launch event a couple of weeks ago. In addition to giving us his current, 7-sneaker rotation, we caught up with the mastermind at the event to discuss additional specifics on the Air Jordan 2012. With the “Year of the Dragon” Air Jordan 2012 set to hit retailers tomorrow, we share with you some of the conversation we had with Tinker Hatfield about the Air Jordan 2012′s evolution, its design inspiration, the comparison between the Air Jordan 2012 and the Nike Zoom Kobe VII and much more.

RELATED: Air Jordan 2012 Launch Event Recap | Air Jordan 2012 iD Preview | My 7: Tinker Hatfield’s Sneaker Rotation

Air Jordan 2012

Nice Kicks: How long did the entire Air Jordan 2012 design process take?

Tinker Hatfield: From my design sketches, it’s been about 18 months, but we were working on components before that because the engineering was so difficult.

Nice Kicks: Hand rubbed patina leather was incorporated on the Air Jordan 2011′s makeup, and the Air Jordan 2012 possesses a wingtip-like attribute on the toe box. Will high-quality, dress shoe aesthetics be a part of the Air Jordan line from now on?

Tinker Hatfield: It’s really a reaction to Michael himself. He really, really loves finely crafted dress shoes. The Air Jordan 2011 had hand rubbed leather with wax. That’s one of the reasons the 2011 costs so much in addition to each one being different. There’s a shoe company in Europe that does that, and Michael loves to buy those shoes. We wanted to do that in a basketball shoe, and he loved it.

Nice Kicks: Within the past year, we have seen the Air Jordan line and the Nike Kobe series go into a modular direction in terms of performance and supplying the wearer with options. Can we expect a consistent parallel between the two lines moving forward?

Tinker Hatfield: The Kobe shoes come out of the same design group as this shoe. So, as an example we have the Innovation Kitchen, and there’s a smaller group off of that in which we call the ‘Zoo’. That’s my area. Eric Avar works in there as well, and he does all of the Kobe stuff. I work in there, and I do the Jordan stuff. Mark Smith works in there, too. He’s doing the Dwyane Wade stuff. What’s really important about that is we all need to communicate a lot because each one of those pillars of basketball for us have to be different. They’re such big and important shoes for us, so we want to make sure LeBron is kind of leading in its own design direction, Kobe is going its own way and MJ’s too. We all work together to make sure everything is carefully separated out.

Nike Zoom Kobe VII & Air Jordan 2012

Read the rest of Tinker Hatfield Discusses Inspiration, Availability & Evolution of Air Jordan 2012

© George Kiel III for NiceKicks.com, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |
Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Air Jordan 2012, Air Jordans, Tinker Hatfield

Yep, you read it right: Marcus, not Michael. Michael Jordan’s son has graced the college hardwoods with debut after debut of upcoming retros dating all they way back to last season. With him recently debuting the “Cement” 4s and the “Chicago” 10s, we caught up with UCF’s leading scorer to see what five sneakers are in his current rotation.

Air Jordan 4 “Cement”

Marcus Jordan: “I’m currently playing in these. They are comfortable and lightweight. They really give me freedom to move and make quick adjustments on the court because of the low cut, but still have the style of a retro.”

Read the rest of My 5: Marcus Jordan’s Sneaker Rotation

© George Kiel III for NiceKicks.com, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |
Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

If there’s anything more desirable than a Ronnie Fieg x ASICS collaboration right now, it’s a colorway that sneakerheads have never seen before. Today, we take another look at Fieg’s latest creation in the form of the GT-II “Rose Gold”. This pair was previously known as the Ronnie Fieg x ASICS GT-II Salmon/Baby Blue. As can be seen from the image above, this pair features a suede mainstay that is complimented with grey hits on the side panel branding as well as the outsole.

Source: Hypebeast

© Albert Lin for NiceKicks.com, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |
Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Asics, Asics GT II, GT-II

Following the Nike Zoom Hyperdunk 2011 Low Jeremy Lin PE we showed you earlier, we now have close-up images of the shoe Jeremy Lin will actually wear in the BBVA Rising Stars Challenge. An iD version of the Nike Zoom Hyperfuse Low, which features a Fuse and mesh-laced upper, was created in a blue and orange, New Yorks Knicks-esque color scheme for Jeremy Lin. One can now customize the same pair of Hyperfuse Lows on NikeiD right now or create your own version. View the BBVA Rising Stars Challenge on TNT now to see Lin wearing this shoe.

Nike Zoom Hyperfuse Low iD for Jeremy Lin

Nike Zoom Hyperfuse Low iD for Jeremy Lin

Nike Zoom Hyperfuse Low iD for Jeremy Lin

Nike Zoom Hyperfuse Low iD for Jeremy Lin

Nike Zoom Hyperfuse Low iD for Jeremy Lin

© George Kiel III for NiceKicks.com, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |
Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Nike, Nike Zoom Hyperfuse Low, NikeiD