Was 23 The Last 23?

For older collectors like myself, Jordan was the center of gravity. He gave sneaker collecting its clearest language. Greatness mattered. Story mattered. Originality mattered. The right Jordan was not just a shoe to wear. It was a piece of history you could own. It represented the coolest player in the league who was also becoming a fashion icon, and usually each sneaker had an iconic on court moment or innovative commercial associated with it.

That is why 23 still carries so much weight. Jordan did not just make sneakers bigger. He helped define what a grail was supposed to feel like. A grail had performance behind it, cultural meaning around it, and enough visual power to stay relevant long after the original moment passed.

The question is whether anyone ever really followed him into that space.

The honest answer is no. But a few names got closer than most.

Kobe is one of them. His line built a different kind of grail language, but it was still powerful. Kobe pairs have performance credibility, emotional weight, and a direct tie to his mindset. They are attached to his game, his work ethic, and now his legacy in a way that makes the shoes feel bigger than the product. For a lot of younger collectors and current NBA/WNBA/NCAA hoopers, Kobes carry some of the same gravity Jordans carried for older generations. His sneakers have created a lot of grails out there like the Grinch and Kobe 1 Undefeated, but it's notable that the most coveted Kobe-related Grail out there is a pack of Jordan 3 and Jordan 8 PEs.

LeBron deserves credit here too. His line never created Jordan-level retro obsession from collectors and celebrities and fashion, but that does not mean it failed. LeBron built one of the deepest signature catalogs ever. His shoes are tied to longevity, dominance, and a career that stretched across eras. That matters. He proved a signature line could still matter at the top level for a very long time. But he never became a universal collector code the way Jordan did. That probably says more about Jordan than LeBron. I personally love my home and away pairs of the Oregon Lebron 2s, they are some of my favorite Oregon shoes in my collection.

Then there is Kanye. If Jordan defined the athlete era of grails, Kanye defined the non-athlete era. Yeezy was not built on championships or game-worn mythology. It was built on design language, hype, scarcity, and taste and crossed the billion dollar mark. For a stretch, Kanye made sneakers feel important without needing sports to validate them. That was a massive shift. He did not become the next 23, but he proved sneaker gravity could move beyond the athlete model. He also innovated at Nike first and created some collector grails in the Nike Air Yeezy 1 and the Nike Red October Yeezy 2.

Travis Scott is another huge piece of this story, but his role is different. Travis has probably been the biggest force of the collaboration era. But part of what makes his rise so interesting is that his strongest work has often come through Jordan and Nike silhouettes that already carried history. That is not a weakness. It is the point. Even one of the most powerful modern sneaker figures reached his highest collector level by working inside the framework 23 built. He's not done yet though, but it seems like to truly reach the next level he needs to make something that's his own.

In many ways, this change in sneakers reflects the media and attention landscape of today. It's much harder now to be the level of universal star that Jordan and even Kanye became. People's attention is much more fragmented due to social media and all the forms of entertainment. Not everyone seems the same game winning shot. Not everyone sees the same Mars Blackmon Jordan commercial. And Kanye really became a bigger star beyond his music as he moved into fashion, a high profile celebrity relationship with Kim Kardashian, and unfortunately ultimately controversy.

What does it mean to collect in a world where there may not be another universal 23?

For collectors with big Jordan collections, I do not think the answer is to move away from Jordan. I think the answer is to get sharper. A big Jordan collection still means a lot. But moving forward, the strongest Jordan collections will probably be the ones with a clearer point of view. Not just more Jordans. Better Jordans. The OGs that define the canon. The retros that still carry story. The collabs built on legendary foundations. The pairs that would still matter if hype disappeared tomorrow, which maybe it has? For example, the core of my collection is Oregon Jordans. It gives me a focus, grails to chase, and a clear viewpoint on what I'm after next.

Collectors should probably spend less time looking for the next all-powerful athlete or collaborator and more time looking for shoes that can survive multiple eras of taste. Pairs that look good now, mean something now, and still have enough story behind them to matter later.

That may be the biggest lesson of all. If 23 was the last universal code, then collecting gets a little harder from here. But it also gets much more interesting and dynamic.

You cannot rely on one myth to organize everything for you.

You need your own thesis.

You need to decide what kind of greatness matters to you. The Mamba mentality. The LeBron longevity arc. The Kanye taste shift. The Travis remix of legacy. The BMX star. The Twitch streamer. The YouTuber.

Maybe that is what comes after 23.

Not one successor.

A fractured map of different kinds of grails.

And the best collectors will be the ones who know how to read it.

That is the question I would throw back to all of you this week.

What is next? Is it a fractured landscape based on our media attention? Or is it just more 23?

Hit reply and let me know.

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