Jordan Zion 1 has been released for more than one month. Recently, the manuscripts and configuration of Jordan Zion 1 has been publicly disclosed. As the first pair of basketball shoes of the most potential basketball players of AJ brand, what about its configuration?
Jordan Zion 1 uses Air Sole Stobel with Zoom Air and anti-torqued plate combination. The Air Sole Strobel cushion is similar to insole fabric. It’s also used on PG4 and PG5. It’s soft, but the cushion performance is not good enough.
There is a piece of Zoom Air cushion on the forefoot sole, but this piece of Zoom Air cushion is small. With the TPU plate on the midsole, this configuration is the same as Kyrie 1. It maybe enough for the defenders like Kyrie. But Zion is a power type frontline, even if it adds a layer of Air Sold Strobel cushion, but I still think that the cushion performance is not good enough for Zion.
On the manuscripts, the forefoot Zoom air cushion should be oval type. But it’s changed to small rectangle type Zoom air cushion. It may consider the cost, so NIKE changes the Zoom type. I’m disappointed at it.
The vamp is made of mesh fabric, hot-melting and articulated type shoe tongue. The forefoot vamp has a fixing lace up. The padding of vamp is not thick.
The outsole uses conventional herringbone pattern. As you know, the traction performance of herringbone pattern is good.
Manuscripts
In the begining, the designer has confirmed to use Z as the core designing concepts. The reinforced design on the shoe head is asymmetric design. The design of shoe tongue is interesting. I think that it may refer to the air pocket design of LBJ18.
The insole is separated forefoot sole and rear sole. The position of forefoot sole has pattern and it has flyman logo. The position of midsole should have a exposed TPU plate design, but it hasn’t been showed on the manuscript.
We can see the configuration of Jordan Zion 1 clearly from the deconstructed picture of insole. The insole uses full-length Air Sole Strobel, and the forefoot sole has a piece of small Zoom air cushion, and there is a layer of insole material under the Zoom air cushion. It looks not thick. The outer layer is the rubber of outsole.
But the manuscript is different. The forefoot Zoom air cushion type has been changed.
The designer of Jordan Zion 1 is Vianney De Montgolfier who comes from France. He used to design the football shoes such as Tiempo Legend 6. He also uses similar design on Zion 1, such as the fitting system of forefoot and the design of shoe tongue etc.
Overall, there are not many lightspots on the manuscripts. The design of Jordan Zion 1 is not bad, but the configuration is not good enough. It’s on the middle level. The location of Zion 1 is higher than PG series. So the price will be higher than PG series.