Well, Michael Jordan and the rest of the Dream Team squad but of course we’re going to focus in on the GOAT. That’s right, the upcoming NBA 2K13 will feature that 1992 Olympic Team with Michael Jordan featured front and center here. He even gets some special treatment graphics wise, with the majority of the team suited up in generic sneakers whereas Michael is clearly in the Air Jordan VII (although the colorway doesn’t look quite ‘Olympic’). Click through for all the renderings and let us know if you’re excited for this next installment in the 2K series.

We’ve all wanted to be like Mike at one point or another, but how far have you actually gone to complete that task? Host Matt Lauer of NBC’s TODAY took it to new heights recently, using the TODAY in History segment on the program to recreate one of the most iconic photos from Michael Jordan’s career: the massive dunk contest shot shown above. Click through with us to check out the video of Lauer’s mid-air suspension that led to a pretty good recreation (complete with the proper Air Jordan III’s).

We all know that once Michael Jordan stepped onto the court in the Air Jordan 1 the sneaker game had changed forever, but are you familiar with the effort Nike had to put forth to reign him in? The new book Dream Team by Jack McCallum dishes out some interesting details from the first meet between Mike and Nike, like MJ’s claims that he would “look like a clown” if he wore the bright by all standads sneakers in the NBA and that his parents had convinced him against backing out of the Beaverton trip at the last moment. Peep the full excerpt over at Deadpsin and let’s all be thankful that Mike made the right call during that fateful meeting in Oregon.

Peruse any forum or comments section of a sneaker site these days and you’ll see plenty of folks grumbling about the modern materials used in sneaker production, but in the case of the Air Jordan XIV we should apparently be thankful more than anything. On March 5th, 1999 the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued of recall of about 110,000 pairs of the Air Jordan XIV in sizes 2C through 10C due to the red accents carrying amounts of led paint exceeding Federal standards for children’s products. The moral of the story? Think twice next time you pick up a vintage pair of Air Jordan XIV’s for the little ones. via: DeFY/NYT

Sneakers as art? The whole custom scene should have you familiar with that concept by now, but if not here’s another outlet, an awesome coffee table style book crammed with over 450 pages of sneaker history in a consistently cartoony rotoscoped style. Of course any look at the history of basketball shoes would be nothing short of a travesty without its share of the Air Jordan story, and we’ve selected some sections from the preview for just that. Click through to check out a couple pages from Mis Zapas and buy the book now if you like what you see.

The whole online auction house thing is obviously a great source for various items from the Michael Jordan lineage, but what if you could distill all that into one physical space? Doing their best at that is Japanese shop Kinetics, who are currently running the ONLYJORDAN exhibition at the mosmos atmos space in Tokyo. The spot will hold tons of vintage merchandise and oddities, and of course plenty of footwear with over 150 deadstock Air Jordan’s waiting to be had. Click through to get a glimpse of the event and make sure to stop by if you’re in the area. via: Freshness

mosmos atmos
4-27-6 Jingumae | Map
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Japan

Exhibition Dates: June 30, 2012 (Saturday) – July 16, 2012 (Monday) | 12 pm – 8 pm

When you talk about the all-time great Michael Jordan performances The Flu Game is bound to come up in the discussion. It was one of those moments that threatened to expose a chink in his armor, threatened to break the illusion and prove to us that His Airness was human after all. As it turned out, he’s not. On June 11th 1997, fifteen years ago today, the Chicago Bulls were tied up in the NBA Finals with the Utah Jazz and forced to face the tough, Karl Malone equipped squad at home. To make matters worse their most versatile weapon, MJ himself, was struck with non-stop nausea and intense bouts of sweating the day prior to the match-up, with his trainers insisting that he had to take the next day off. Refusing to let his team battle without him Jordan suited up anyway, with his abilities waxing (17 points in the second quarter) and waning (Utah takes an 8 points lead at the end of the third) due to his physical illness. In the 4th quarter though Michael turned it on, playing through the pain to light up the Jazz with 15 points in the period, enough to send his team to a victory and him collapsing into Scottie Pippen’s arms as per the iconic image shown above.

Of course the sneaker history of that magical moment was not lost, and the black and red Air Jordan XII colorway MJ wore in the Flu Game performance has since been retrod to spin the tale for a new generation. The 2009 version switched out the full grain leather for some nubuck up top and also slipped in some details alluding to the game, among them the flu-faced smiley and the numbers 97 and 38 (the number of points he earned that night) inscribed along the side. Click through for some vintage photos from Michael Jordan’s epic Flu Game performance back in 1997 as well as a video recap and let us know where this ranks as far as all-time MJ moments. Photos: Sneaker News

We’ve given you a few scattered looks at the Air Jordan history found about campus at the Nike world headquarters out in Beaverton, OR, the sort of inside peeks that we all dreamed about while growing up and sending off grade school sketches to designers with our fingers crossed. This latest look takes you inside the building named after our hero, a spot anchored in the main lobby by a collection of OG Air Jordan pairs along with some rare memoribilia and historical snippets. Hit the jump for a photo tour of the Michael Jordan building at the Nike HQ and stay tuned for more shots from around the campus. Photos: Sole Movement

How many different logos from Nike’s far flung divisions and projects can you think of off the top of your head? However deep your knowledge we bet it can’t compare to this, the Nike Logo Project, and encyclopedic collection of logos spanning Nike’s storied history that has been under secrecy for the duration of the compilation process. Now that it’s out in the open some interesting details emerge, particularly pertaining to the design behind the Jumpman logo. Famously immortalizing a mid-air Michael pose, the logo was intended by designer Tinker Hatfield to be iconic on the same level as the Polo horsey, with MJ filling the role as a “black Ralph Lauren”. Click through to check out the Nike Logo Project and let us know how many you recognize while perusing the gallery. Photos: Sole Movement

Even the Greatest of All Time had to start at square one upon his entrance to the NBA. Sure he was a star in the NCAA but as we all know that never guarantees similar success in the pros, so Michael Jordan had something to prove in his 1984-85 rookie season. Prove it he did, and he abandoned square one pretty quickly as it turns out, finishing third in the league in points per game (28.2 with 51.5% shooting on the season), being named a starter for the East in that year’s NBA All-Star Game, and taking the Chicago Bulls to the playoffs for the first time in four years. Those efforts were not unnoticed by the league, who immediately recognized Michael as a rising star and crowned him Rookie of the Year on May 16th, 1985.

And what sneakers did MJ wear during that initial year? The easy answer is of course his initial signature silhouette, the Air Jordan 1. Heads who really know their history though will recall that Michael actually showed up in the Nike Air Ship, an early spin-off of the ubiquitous Nike Air Force 1, quite a few times as well. Stay with us after the jump for a photo gallery of classic Michael Jordan sneaker moments from that rookie year, as well as a vintage video spot from the award ceremony that went down on this day, May 16th, 27 years ago. Photos: Complex