A press conference is a strange beast: you go into a room with a bunch of other reporters, bloggers, writerly types, and anxious-looking PR people who seemingly outnumber the reporters. They don't, but it always feels like it. There's often some kind of song and dance before the person or product you're there to write about is rolled out, and then that person (or thing) comes to the stage, where you can ask questions about them (or it). Eventually, you're told the questions are done, you're handed press kits by the flacks, given some coffee (possibly some food) and sent on your way. This is more or less exactly -- exactly -- how the press conference for the newest installment in Nike's Air Jordan line went.

Some Nike people spoke, (US Track & Field Paralympian) April Holmes showed up and spoke, Nike's Jason Mayden (a former Nike intern who ended up designing the new Air Jordan shoe) spoke, and sometime after that, Michael Jordan walked out with the shoe to kind applause. Mayden and Jordan spoke for a bit, and then they opened the floor to questions. Unfortunately, the shoe didn't get to answer any, and the other reporters in the room were so occupied with asking questions Jordan's probably heard thousands of times before in his career, I couldn't bring myself to raise my hand and ask about a potential sequel to the consistently underrated Space Jam. But I did take notes.

We learned from the press conference that this year's version of the ubiquitous basketball shoe -- which, as you can see from the picture below, looks like something of out of Michael and Janet Jackson's "Scream" video -- was primarily inspired by two things: defensive play and fencing. Yes, fencing, which we'll get to. But first, since we're blogging for BlackBook, we should explain to our (possibly non-sports oriented) readers that defense is really important, but it's not as much fun as offense, because you don't really get to score points unless you're really awesome, and all you care about is scoring points, right? Right.

"Let's come up with a shoe that helps us play better defense," noted Jordan, speaking of the thought process behind the initial design sketches. "As a defensive player, sometimes the element of surprise comes into play. [The shoe] looks kind of basic, kind of clean, kind of in disguise. But there's a lot of sophisticated technology in there." Jordan shook me off with the Michael Crichton-speak like I was a weak-kneed benchwarmer thrown in at the last minute. He continued, "What makes this shoe different from the next? We always try and implement DNA characteristics into the shoe." And there: I'm gone. I had no idea what he meant by that, and I lost track of the context, but it was probably something either about the history of the shoe or the way it fits your foot. Exactly.

It's important to know that -- as opposed to being the Air Jordan 24, this is the Air Jordan 2009. For 23 shoes, they just slapped a number after the words "Air Jordan" to denote which number shoe it was, but now, like a car, these babies have a year on them. Jordan notes, "24 would diminish what 23 meant. And I didn't feel it was necessary to do 24." He spoke more about demeaning the number 23 -- which, of course, was Jordan's playing number, among other mysticisms -- and didn't comment too much on the amending of the alphanumeric title past that. One reporter from CNBC asked Michael Jordan who the next Michael Jordan was, if it wasn't, say, LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant, etc. Jordan answered something about "the consumer deciding," which I thought was a little strange. I always thought talent decided something like that; also, I decided that Allen "Practice" Iverson is my hero, but why isn't he on Team Jordan? Sucky.

But the best moment of the press conference came when a reporter -- I think from SLAM -- asked Jordan about the $190 price point on the shoe. "Is it a tough price point?" Jordan wondered. "Yeah, you could say that. It's for the guy who wants to go out and buy that Ferrari." One of the reporters up front started gagging from a coughing fit. But another SLAM reporter then asked Jordan whether or not Team Jordan is going to start signing and endorsing any fencers, since earlier in the conference, somebody on stage identified the rising sport of fencing -- fencing is on the rise?! -- as the other primary inspiration for the shoe. "We're not afraid of where the consumer wants to go," Jordan explains. "I'm not gonna say no." At this point, I wanted either another cup of coffee or a cup of seppuku. I got the cup of coffee; the questions wrapped up, and the reporters were sent to feel the shoe. It was smooth, and shiny, and they didn't give us any free ones, so we can't endorse it. But really, it's a $200 shoe that looks like it fell off of MIR. At least the last pair of Nikes I owned -- this Mark McGwire endorsed number that was culled straight from the set of the The Lion King musical -- had some character.

Then again, it's the shoe of the future: cold, shiny, bleak, too expensive, and best worn by those on the defense who're good with pointy swords. I still like Michael Jordan. A lot. I just think his shoes and this press conference sucked. The shoes come out on February 14, so you can buy them for your sweetie. They're $195. And now, for your obligatory Space Jam/Quad City DJs clip: