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When it comes to Nike’s basketball sneakers, the Foamposite One is an outlier. Its full foam upper, with ridged waves on the side, made it visually unlike anything else when it was released in 1997. It was designed by Eric Avar, who went on to be Kobe Bryant’s right hand design man. But it took him three years to make the design come to life—usually it’s 18 months for a sneaker. He started working on it in 1994. It bounced around from Scottie Pippen, to Mike Bibby in college, but was made famous by Penny Hardaway, a guard for the Orlando Magic. Even though it’s the Foamposite One, it wasn’t Penny’s first sneaker with Nike. He already had two shoes out by then, and even did commercials with Lil Penny and Tyra Banks. But he was able to make the Foamposite One his own.
They’re like boots—almost indestructible. They gained popularity on the streets due to their lofty price. They first retailed for $180 and then shot up to over $200 upon their retro. It’s a shoe that’s taken many forms, colorways. They even caused riots when Supreme did a collaboration on the sneaker in 2014. Some say it’s dead. Some say it never left. Its cultural home is the DMV area, where its popularity and status never waned. Just ask someone like Wale. I feel like we’re going to get cut up any which way for this list, because it’s a shoe that people care about and have an emotional attachment to. And that’s what matters most. Here are our picks for the Best Nike Air Foamposite Ones of all time. —Matt Welty
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Year: 2024
It’s clear that Nike is putting an emphasis on the Foamposite again in the past couple years, bringing bag fan favorite colorways as well as creating intriguing new designs. The “DMV” colorway that dropped last year is a fitting love letter to an area that really helped put Foams on the map. To take things a step even further, they tapped Wale for the marketing, a perfect champion for both the DMV and the Foamposite line. —Ben Felderstein
Year: 2012
The thing I remember the most about this shoe was trying to sell my co-worker at Foot Locker my DS Eggplant Foams for retail. And he said he didn’t want them because he wanted to buy the red Foams that were coming out that weekend instead. The red Foam are OK, but they’re not the Eggplants. And that’s all I’ll remember them by. —Matt Welty
Year: 2013
Say what you want about this shoe, but when I think of graphic patterns adorning the uppers of Nike Foams, this is the first shoe that comes to mind. A lot of you are going to hate it, and a lot of you are going to love it, but there is no escaping the fact that it’s the perfect representation of an era when Foams were close to the height of their powers. —Ben Felderstein
Year: 2015
It’s hard to believe now, given the NBA’s near-total lack of color-based sneaker rules, that two of the most legendary sneakers in history faced fines for the exact opposite reasons: Michael Jordan’s “Bred” Air Jordan 1 (or Air Ship) had too much black, while Penny Hardaway’s “Royal” Air Foamposite One didn’t have enough. The latter led to Hardaway filling in the grooves of his Foamposites to comply with league policy, which was eventually honored with a retail release to mimic the customization. It was one half of a two-shoe, $500 pack that also included the Air Penny 6. The Penny 6 was fine, and a cool continuation of Hardaway’s line years after he’d retired. But the real draw was the “Sharpie” Foams, which brought to life a legendary sneaker story. —Zac Dubasik
Year: 2007
All I remember is this shoe being a massive let down on NikeTalk. The original sample of the sneaker had a see-through sole, and people thought it was going to be one of the best Foamposites of all time. Then the shoes hit retail and people learned that they had a regular rubber sole, which we had never seen on a Foamposite before—mostly for good reason, because translucent is much better on this sneaker. Nike was big on the Cactus color at the time. I remember selling Assault Lows in a Cactus colorway at Foot Locker the same year. And oddly enough, those had a translucent sole, one a shoe that never has a translucent sole. Maybe things got mixed up at the factory. —Matt Welty
Year: 2012
Nike dropped the Foamposite One “Stealth” right in the middle of the silhouette’s peak. While “Galaxy” and “Paranorman” made headlines on online blogs, this colorway did exactly what it was supposed to do—it still sold out and didn’t do too much. It’s dressed in all black which is essential for an everyday pair, but it proved how big the hype was. Growing up I actually owned a pair and felt like Batman. —Douglas Jase
Year: 2015
Nike went all out when it came to the releases for the 2015 NBA All-Star Weekend in New York City, but none stood out more than the “Chromeposite” Foamposite One. The silver makeup references the Big Apple’s “glistening streets” and features a mirror-like upper that’s unlike any Foamposite we’d seen before. The sneaker also has an updated Nike Swoosh logo in silver on the heel, with parts that are blacked out to spell out NYC. —Victor Deng
Year: 2012
I was never too much of a Foamposite guy growing up, but this was a shoe that I always wanted. They were a statement piece. If you came through the door wearing a pair of “Pearlized Pink” Foams, you were going to break a few necks. Some of you might remember the pic of Fabolous wearing them along the water in NYC, but for me I’ll always remember Kevin Ware wearing one pink Foam in the National Championship game against Michigan after suffering maybe the most gruesome leg injury of all time in the Elite Eight. Does that make the shoe any better? No, but they’re still an elite Foamposite. —Ben Felderstein
Year: 2010
Sometimes a sneaker colorway inspiration is so obvious that you just have to go for it, despite the propensity for such literal interpretations to go wrong. But the “Copper” Air Foamposite One is a rare example of things actually going right with such a concept. Once the Foamposite started getting the full retro treatment in the late 2000s, it was probably always just a matter of time until Anfernee Hardaway’s “Penny” nickname was properly honored in sneaker form. Thankfully, the Foamposite’s metallic sheen lent itself perfectly to the copper look. And rather than coming across as cringy, it worked so well that it made you wonder what took so long for such a perfect colorway to come to fruition. —Zac Dubasik
Year: 2021
Legend has it that the original Foamposite molds cost upwards of $750,000, which makes a reinterpretation as drastic as Comme des Garçons’ all the more impressive. The Japanese fashion label, long known for its experimental aesthetic, made the most of the creative freedom it was afforded as part of this project and delivered an entirely new upper that still felt like a Foamposite—just one we’d never imagined before. Given the history of CDG’s collab pricing, the sophistication of the construction, and the fact that the original Foamposite was amongst the most expensive shoes of its time, it wasn’t a big surprise that they retailed for a whopping $520. Despite that, the shoes sold out, and are still flipping for big money on the resale market. —Zac Dubasik
Year: 2014
Easily the most infamous release on this list is Supreme’s Versace-styled Nike Foamposite One collabs. The release took place in 2014 during an era where fans were camping out days in advance for in-store Supreme releases in New York, which only heightened when they learned about its hyped-up Foamposite collabs once they surfaced online. As expected, chaos ensued as a riot almost broke out and forced the NYPD to shut down the in-store drop, further adding to the allure of the collab. —Victor Deng
Year: 2009
Flipping signature colorways from one model to another is a popular trope in sneaker design. It’s one that can come across as cheap when forced, evoking more eye rolls than nostalgia. It’s also something that can really work well when done right. The “Eggplant” Nike Air Foamposite One is a rare example that actually made sense, and felt more like an inevitable victory rather than a cheap hit. The purple colorway was made famous by the Nike Air Flightposite, a direct descendant of the Air Foamposite One. When merged with the Foamposite One, it came across as something that was always meant to be, and arguably has become even more popular in its updated form than the original. —Zac Dubasik
Year: 2012
One of the best Foamposite Ones to ever release came out of the blue in 2012 when Nike joined forces with the animation studio Laika to design a new colorway inspired by the film Paranorman. The sneaker was made available through a social media contest where fans who had the “weirdest childhood photo,” under the collaborators’ discretion, were able to win a pair. The sneaker features a black-based Foamposite upper paired with smoky green flame graphics at the base, while an embroidery of the film’s protagonist, Norman, appears on the left heel. —Victor Deng
Year: 2012
It’s kind of wild to think that “Galaxy” Foams actually released this year. Before Nike opened the vault and brought them back, they were one of the most hyped sneakers to ever release. In 2019, Complex ranked them as the 4th Most Hyped Sneaker of the 2010s decade. If it weren’t for 2025’s release, I think you’d have a harder time arguing against this pair being number 1 on the list. The design is great, the demand used to be there (now they’re flipping for only around $50 above retail), and it has the double All-Star Weekend connection, dropping during two separate ASWs. The first time around, the cops had to be called all across the country, this year they seemed like an afterthought. —Ben Felderstein
Year: 1997
The number-one pick isn’t controversial. But it was a controversial sneaker at the time. The “Royal Foamposite One” is the one. It’s Penny Hardaway’s shoe. Or is it? The sneaker was shopped around quite a bit internally at Nike. Maybe it was supposed to be a Scottie Pippen sneaker, according to him. Then it was given to Mike Bibby and the Arizona Wildcats. And then it was given to Penny. Penny himself doesn’t like that. When I interviewed him years ago he hung up after I asked him that question. “I know from back then, I heard he was very mad that he didn’t get a chance to wear them first,” Mike Bibby told me in an interview about Penny last year. That aside. It was the perfect sneaker to match the hype and cultural cachet of Penny Hardaway and the Orlando Magic and their awesome uniforms. It was $180, which was insane in 1997. But also gave it aspirational street cred from the jump. There’s the legendary ad photo for the sneaker with the phone number. The sneaker was retroed for the first time in 2007, but they weren’t easy to get back then and instantly resold on sites like PickYourShoes.com for serious money—at least at the time. Every time the shoe comes back it’s a big thing. And it should be. It’s the one. —Matt Welty
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