Nike brought the Air Zoom Flight “The Glove” back on July 31 at $170, and the black and white pair was gone from SNKRS the same afternoon. This page originally previewed the shoe from leaked images and called the date upcoming. Both of those have since resolved, so what follows is what actually happened, what the shoe is, and why a 1998 basketball model with a zipper over its laces still clears a launch that fast.
The Air Zoom Flight “The Glove” arrived in 1998 and it belongs to Gary Payton, the Seattle point guard who picked up that nickname during the 1993 Western Conference Finals against Phoenix and never lost it. It is usually described as his signature model. Nike has never published copy that says so, and the more careful statement is the one Nike does make on its own launch page, where the product is simply called The Glove. Design credit goes to Eric Avar in most accounts of the model, including the outlets that covered this return, though no Nike page names him, so read that as reported rather than confirmed.
The construction was the actual argument. An external zippered shroud pulled over the laces and covered them completely, which nothing else on an NBA floor was doing in 1998. Underneath sat Zoom Air cushioning and a support wing that collectors have long called the Monkey Paw. One detail does not reconcile cleanly across sources: Nike’s 2026 copy describes a full-length Zoom Air unit, while accounts of the original build describe separate heel and forefoot units. Those are two different setups, and nobody has published a spec sheet that settles which the retro uses.
The 2026 pair is the OG black and white, style code IV6206-010. The shroud is black with white Swooshes over a white toe, and the accent sitting under the zip is University Red, which is Nike’s own color name for it and more useful than the generic “dark red” this page carried before. One more thing worth correcting here: Nike’s launch copy says The Glove returns for just the second time since 1998, and the record does not support that. There was a 2013 retro that included a Sole Collector colorway, a run of 2014 makeups covering Seattle and Oregon State among others, and a 2020 return built on a transparent shroud. Whether Nike is counting this specific colorway or is simply wrong, the model has been back more than twice, and anyone telling you 2026 is the first look since 2014 has skipped a year.
What makes this one land is that the zipper stopped being a novelty. In 1998 the shroud read as futurism. In 2026 it reads as easy on and off, which is much closer to what people actually want from a retro basketball shoe they will never play in. Nike has spent several years reissuing performance models built for a game nobody plays that way any more, and most of them need an explanation before they make sense on a shelf. This one does not.
It also helps that Payton’s case has aged into something bulletproof. He won Defensive Player of the Year for the 1995-96 season, the first point guard ever to take the award, and he made nine straight All-Defensive First Teams from 1993-94 through 2001-02. In 1997-98, the season this shoe belongs to, he played all 82 games and averaged 19.2 points, 8.3 assists, 4.6 rebounds and 2.3 steals in better than 38 minutes a night. A retro sells on the strength of what the wearer did in it, and that is a stronger ledger than most signature-adjacent models can put up.
Retail was $170, which sits above where a plain leather retro basketball model usually lands and reflects the extra work in the shroud and zip assembly. The market has held above it since. StockX has the pair averaging roughly $208 across about 3,800 sales in the trailing three months, with the most recent sale near $180. Resale platform figures are directional rather than official, but the shape is clear enough: a retro that sells out on launch day and then trades over retail for a month is doing something most of Nike’s 2026 basketball reissues have not managed.
The Nike Air Zoom Flight “The Glove” in black and white, style code IV6206-010, released July 31 at $170 through Nike and select retailers, and sold out at SNKRS on the day. Nike has announced no restock, so pairs are on the secondary market only for now. More on this model sits in the Air Zoom Flight hub, and the rest of the brand’s retro run is in the Nike archive.
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Source: Justfreshkicks
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