Most sneakerheads know that Michael Jordan was considering jumping ship from Nike to adidas before Tinker Hatfield showed him the Air Jordan III in 1988, but did you know that adidas had a chance at MJ as a rookie?
As Jordan prepared to go pro in 1984, it was reported that His Airness wanted to sign with adidas originally, and even adidas distributors were interested in acquiring him. However, in a move that seems preposterous in hindsight, the Three Stripes executives in Germany called it off because they thought Jordan, at 6'6", was too short to sell sneakers.
Instead, they were convinced that consumers were more interested in taller players like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Patrick Ewing. While both had sneakers that were successful in their own right, they can't hold a candle to the legacy that became Air Jordan.
[via Wall Street Journal]
