Mike Guillory got the Reebok Question 96/26 in hand ahead of release, and his first line about it is the right one. Thirty years on from Allen Iverson’s first signature shoe, the way Reebok chose to mark the anniversary is the most polarizing thing it could have done. It printed it.
What the original Question actually was
The Question arrived in 1996, during Iverson’s rookie season, and it was his first signature shoe. Reebok gave a signature line to a 21-year-old guard before he had played an NBA game, which was not how the industry worked at the time. Philadelphia had taken him first overall in the 1996 draft, he debuted on November 1, and he finished the season as Rookie of the Year across 76 games at 40.1 minutes a night. The shoe carried a Hexalite window in the midsole, a honeycomb panel on the quarter and, in its best-known makeup, a pearlized toe.
One story about that season gets retold wrong constantly, so it is worth setting straight. Iverson crossed Michael Jordan on March 12, 1997 at the CoreStates Center. It was a double crossover, not a single one, and he hit a 20-foot jumper over Jordan afterward. He scored 37 on 15 of 23 shooting. The Sixers lost the game, 108 to 104. The clip survives without the scoreline attached to it, which is how the loss quietly disappeared from the telling.
There is no leather, no stitching and no glue
The Question 96/26 is 3D printed by Zellerfeld, the outfit that prints footwear as a single piece out of facilities in Austin, Texas and Hamburg, Germany. The line about building without moulds, stitching, glue or traditional assembly is Zellerfeld’s own description of how the company manufactures, from its July 2026 release, rather than something Reebok said about this specific shoe. Worth attributing correctly, because it is the more interesting claim either way.
Zellerfeld makes it from a material it calls zellerFOAM, printed at varying densities for structure in some places and flex in others. There is no Hexalite in here, which is the cushioning that defined the original. The Hexalite pods are printed geometry standing in for the real thing. What Mike points out is that the midsole was shaped to read like the 1996 tooling even though nothing inside it is the same. Look at the two side by side and the relationship is obvious before you can explain why.
What actually survived from 1996
Three things. The honeycomb structure on the panel, the oval windows in the midsole, and the general stance of the shoe. Reebok’s Vector branding sits on the side where you expect it. Everything else is gone. That is the polarizing part, and it is worth being straight about it. This is not a retro with a new colorway on it. It is a reinterpretation that keeps the silhouette’s recognizable geometry and throws out its construction entirely.
Iverson’s own line on it: “When we first created the Question, we wanted to change the game, not follow it. Thirty years later, it is incredible to see that same innovation mindset that made the original special continue through Question 96/26.”
The part nobody is talking about is the retail model
This did not go to Foot Locker. It went up on Zellerfeld’s own site, in adult sizes only, in limited quantity, and it is printed after you order it. The estimated delivery is three to four weeks. Zellerfeld’s pitch is that the shoe is reengineered to fit your own measurements rather than pulled off a size run. Mike, for what it is worth, treated it like a normal sneaker and went true to size at a 10, and his advice for wide feet is to go up a full size. Those two things are worth squaring before ordering, because a printed-to-order shoe is not one you casually exchange.
There is no style code on it, which is the tell that matters. A shoe with no SKU is a shoe that was never going to sit in a retailer’s inventory system, and that is the actual experiment here. The 3D printing is the headline. The distribution is the thing Reebok is really testing.
Release details
The Reebok Question 96/26 is $169 and released Tuesday, August 25 at 12pm ET, exclusively through Zellerfeld, in two colorways: Stone and Lilac. Earlier coverage that named only a white and a purple pair was describing those same two before the names circulated. Sneaker Bar Detroit ran the price as $170, which is the outlier against four other outlets at $169. Sports Illustrated reports this is the first release in a season-long 30th anniversary program, with more colorways and activations to come, though Reebok has announced no specifics. Nothing has been published on how the drop went, and with a three to four week print window the first pairs are only landing now. Everything on the silhouette collects on the Question hub, and the G-Unit G6 return is the other 1996-era Reebok story running this year.
Video and hands-on by Mike Guillory.
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