The Air Jordan XX8 arrived in 2013 at two hundred and fifty dollars and brought the numbers back, counting the four year-named models as twenty-four through twenty-seven. Designed by Tinker Hatfield and Josh Heard, it was defined by a dramatic full-height zip-up shroud over an inner sneaker, polarizing on sight.

Underneath the drama was the important part, a carbon Flight Plate that maximized the energy return from the Zoom Air, a technology that carried forward into the models that followed. Russell Westbrook wore Why Not editions, and a stripped-down SE version ditched the shroud for people who wanted the performance without the theater.

Expensive and divisive, the XX8 is respected most for the Flight Plate, the innovation that reset what a modern Jordan could do on court. It is the shoe that restarted the count.