With the death of his father, no challenge left in the game of basketball - among other issues - Michael jordan shocked the world by announcing he was retiring from basketball.

The Air Jordan 9's were a tribute to Michael Jordan, being that he was retiring the design team that it was appropriate to attatch some sort of significance to that. What they ended up doing was, on the sole, imprinting several words in different languages french, spanish, german, italien, russian and swahili, with different words that represented Michael Jordan's on and off court conduct. The design team said they used different languages other then english to represent the global market that Michael Jordan and Air Jordan had created.

The Air Jordan IX came out during the "I want to be like Mike" era. People all over the globe, from Japan to singapore, to the streets of Chicago were all singing along in tune "I want to be like Mike!". The shoes encompassed exactly that sentiment. The Air Jordan 9's were also a technically sound shoe that offered adequate supprt and flexibility.