How The Mac Attack Landed On The Feet Of LeBron James And Travis Scott

After nearly four decades of laying dormant in the vault, the Mac Attack is officially back. Releasing on June 23rd exclusively at the brand’s NBHD retail partners, the original John McEnroe signature shoe quickly rose to must-have status thanks to a strategic build-up that progressed slowly into an actual ad campaign that featured the foul-mouthed icon and the one known as La Flame. By now you’ve grasped the general overview of the story: LeBron wore a pair in early 2021 (sourced from a collector), and not long later Travis Scott followed suit by sporting his own OG pair (sourced from RIF). This straightforward chain of events eventually led to Nike bringing the Mac Attack back to market, with an endless supply of colorways and even some interesting collaborations in the works.
 
In 2012, I put together a short piece on the Mac Attack as part of our ongoing Classics Revisited series. I distinctly recall the scarcity of general material available on the internet, and most of the info had to be pieced together with my own guesswork acting as a loose glue. Outside of eBay, the Mac Attack barely existed on the internet until better photos started popping up on Instagram. There were also rumors of a retro in the mid-2010s, with samples said to be in circulation (i’ve never seen them), but nothing ever came of it — and understandably so. There really was no market for a shoe like that; the Air Jordan 1 was only getting started and Dunks were wearing away on clearance racks.
 
The landscape of sneakers is obviously quite different in 2023. Air Jordan 1s and Dunks are now as ubiquitous as the Air Force 1, which is great business for Nike. It also means that the brand is looking for its next great revived hit, and the Mac Attack is clearly positioned to take the mantle. For the enthusiasts who have been following the Mac Attack trajectory, their reward is knowing that they played a role in its uprising and the OG pairs they’ve been regularly rotating will no longer go by unnoticed from here on out. Those days of rebellion are likely over.
 
Without further ado, below is a timeline of events is as told to us by three individuals who played key roles in the return of the Mac Attack.
 

 
In 2018, Ben Kirschner was searching around for 80’s cup-soled, leather high-tops for a certain high profile Nike athlete. Ben’s name is one that you’ve likely come across at some point over the years, with it most recently being linked to Kyrie Irving and the custom moccasin-inspired shoes worn by the former Nike signature athlete during the 2023 NBA All-Star Game. Part of Kirschner’s job description as a Nike employee (he is no longer with the company) was to source interesting products for the brand’s athletes and celebrity partners to “make unique things happen”, as he puts it.
 
Kirschner settled on finding a pair of original 1985 Air Jordan 1s, but procuring a pristine pair for the aforementioned athlete was not easy, let alone one in a scarce size 15. During his random searches, he came across an Instagram post by Jon Migdal; it was a slideshow of the Nike Mac Attack, and lo and behold, the shoes were a size 15. Mac Attacks generally went by unnoticed during that time, save the “likes” from true Swoosh enthusiasts.
 

Migdal, aka @migdallion on Instagram, is a rare breed of sneaker collector/enthusiast dedicated to early-era Nike. He’s a true scholar and an insatiable fiend of leather stitched atop rubber; we actually featured him back in 2016 as part of a larger profile of vintage collectors. We were particularly enamored by the insane collection of Player Exclusives and Samples that he’s amassed over the years (seriously, look at the Kevin McHale and George Gervin PEs). Special shout-out to Nick Santora and Zack Schlemmer for cooking this all up.
 
Like many other sneaker collectors in the “elder” age range, Migdal often surfed eBay to find random goods. The long-time online marketplace has always been a goldmine for obscure finds as long as you’re diligent and crafty enough to search regularly and with strategy. In one of his many browsing sessions, he came across a listing for a “Prototype” pair of Mac Attacks in April of 2018 and managed to scoop these mysterious gems for a mere $250.

The pair he secured is not to be confused with the OG white/black pair that circulated during the Mac Attack’s original run in the 1980s. According to Jon, this version is a Player Sample with a special studded outsole made specifically for the grass courts of Wimbledon. He himself owns two pairs — the size 15 and a second in size 9.5 that he later purchased in 2021. He only knows of one other in existence — a pair actually worn and autographed by John McEnroe, guarded by a glass display inside the Wimbledon Tennis Museum.

So, as all eager men do when their interests are piqued by an Instagram photo, Ben slid into Jon’s Instagram DMs and simply asked if the shoes were for sale. Migdal respectfully declined as he was uninterested in ever letting them go. Ben tried to make his pitch more compelling, stating that the shoes were for “a big time athlete…THE biggest athlete”, to which Migdal stood unflinchingly firm in his stance. A deal was never done, and Ben’s intent to get LeBron James in the Mac Attacks in 2018 never came to fruition.
 

Sometime in the early 2010s, a man in his fifties walked into their Los Angeles store to consign some vintage footwear. Jeff says that the two pairs he brought in were in pristine condition and were clearly stored away and untouched for a long time — truly deadstock. One of the two was a vintage pair of Sauconys. The other: a size 10 pair of Mac Attacks in the original grey.
 
Jeff and the mystery consignor agreed on a $500 price and paid him out, but he never displayed the shoes on the store shelves for sale. Understanding the importance of the shoes due to its scarcity and it being a signature shoe from the 1980s, he chose to store them away in the back, occasionally posting photos of them on the RIF Instagram to either generate conversation or to lure buyers through DMs. Jon Migdal even inquired about the price in 2018 (he showed us the DM). Malabanan confirms that he did receive a variety of offers and inquiries throughout the years, but never saw an offer that justified letting them go — a common struggle for any sneaker hoarder.

Despite Ben being unable to pry the size 15 Mac Attacks from Jon, they maintained contact over the years and eventually developed a friendship through their mutual passion for vintage footwear. Ben’s continuing search for unique vintage finds was usually a topic of conversation, but shoe-talk always reverted back to those Mac Attacks that Jon was still highly reluctant to sell. In late 2020, Ben threw out the idea of potentially loaning the shoes, which is common practice by high-end brands looking to get their products on famous folk.
 
Jon was open to the idea, so Ben connected him with the personal stylist of the “big time athlete”, and got the wheels in motion after a 90-minute conversation. An agreement was in place and papers were drawn up to cover potential loss, logistics, and whatnot. This was a deal directly with LeBron’s camp and Nike was not involved. According to Jon, nobody else at Nike had ever reached out to him, although athletes have done so in the past.
 
The original intent was for LeBron James to wear the shoes during the tunnel walk on the Christmas Day game between the Lakers and Mavericks. Jon packed up the shoes and shipped them FedEx overnight with all the fix-ins (signature confirmation, insurance, the works). However, during the COVID-19 lockdown, and considering the time of year, the shipping industry was, to put it lightly, a shit-show. Due to the sheer volume of parcels that were flying across the globe, packages were guaranteed to be late. Despite paying for the best possible service offered by FedEx, the shoes took nine days to arrive. During that gut-wrenching span of ambiguous tracking updates, Jon admits “I’ve never been on the phone with Fed Ex so much in my life”. Eventually, the shoes arrived into the possession of the intended hands.

On January 10th, 2021, Ben reached out to me, suggesting I keep an eye on LeBron James’ Instagram later that evening. To everyone’s surprise, the King sported Jon Migdal’s highly rare Mac Attack Grass Court Player Sample during his “tunnel walk” stroll inside the Toyota Center in Houston. LeBron wearing eye-catching sneakers during pre-game walks to the locker room were hardly rare occurrences, but there was an extra tingling of the senses with the Mac Attack.
 
Photos were reposted en masse by sneaker media sites and personalities (us included), and it’s likely that the average Joe had no clue what LeBron had on his feet, let alone it being a possible one-of-one. A day later, on January 11th, Jeff Malabanan received a text message from another Nike employee, looking for a pair of Mac Attacks specifically requested by Travis Scott. Luckily that size 10 pair of Mac Attacks were still in his possession.
 

Travis Scott had been a regular customer of RIF LA for quite some time. According to Jeff, he and his crew came roughly once a month to pick up a variety of footwear — most notably hard-to-find SB Dunks which became the crown jewels of his sneaker rotation over the last few years. The shop founder notes that early on, Scott heavily favored the Air Jordan 4 and purchased the silhouette’s most choice iterations such as the 2006 Lightning 4s, Laser 4s, and others. The artist’s tastes eventually changed to Dunks and shoes of that era.
 
On January 18th, the unnamed Nike employee confirmed Travis Scott’s intent to purchase the shoes, and Jeff officially set them aside — not that they were every actually on the market. On January 22nd, 2021, Jeff was notified by Travis that he was stopping by. This shopping spree occurred at the brand new RIF LA store, months after the closing of the original store (it had been destroyed and looted during the riots in June of 2020) and long before it ever opened its doors to the public.

As per usual, Travis spent a nice chunk (an undisclosed amount of change) on a variety of sneakers before the Mac Attack was presented to him. The Houston rapper immediately took to the shoe, stating that he’d be into doing some sort of project with the sneaker, although it was likely too early for it to truly mean anything. Jeff ended up gifting the shoes to Travis free of charge, to which Travis responded to by promising Jeff pairs of this potential future project if it ever happens. Travis, if you’re reading this, don’t leave your guy hanging.
 
Coincidentally, Jeff is also close friends with Ben Kirschner; their friendship dates back to mid-late 2000’s to when they were connected by a mutual friend through their shared love of sneakers. Both Ben and Jeff admit that Mac Attacks have always been either a topic of conversation, or mentioned in passing, and it definitely came up when LeBron wore the Mac Attacks obtained from Jon Migdal’s collection. Ben had also known about Travis’ planned pit-stop at RIF and suggested bringing out the Mac Attack for Travis to see.

It wasn’t until mid-March of 2021 that Travis Scott revealed his new acquisition. Posted up on a white couch, Cactus Jack sported the Mac Attack for the first time (to the public, at least), further causing a frenzy. It continued to snowball in June when he wore them again while sitting court-side at a Brooklyn Nets Playoffs game. Due to this chain of events, the Mac Attack firmly re-established itself to the newer generation. It’s possible that Nike had planned something sooner for the release, although the tragic events at Astroworld later in 2021 put a halt on any projects Nike had planned with the artist.
 
Almost two years later, the Mac Attack has officially returned to market. Based on what’s been leaked thus far, we can expect the OG white/black “Wimbledon” version as well as several new “GR” colorways to expand on the small history of the Mac Attack. And for the grey/black OG, Nike chose to allocate pairs only to its NBHD retail partners — a similar strategy employed for the revival of the Air Ship. It’s safe to say that the latter hasn’t caught fire like the tennis shoe has, but based on what transpired, Nike has a clearer understanding that when it comes to marketing, sometimes there is no plan of attack.

 
Special thanks to Jon Migdal, Jeff Malabanan, and Ben Kirschner.