This morning, at the Ed Davis Community Center in Akron, Ohio, Lebron James unveiled his new sneaker to a room full of local student athletes, media reps, and the rest of the world via webcast. Also present were sneaker designer Jason Petrie of Nike and the MC of the morning was one of my favorite comedians, Kenan Thompson from Saturday Night Live.

I want to jump right in and call out important design aspects of the new sneaker:

•The sneaker took 18 months from design conception to finished product.

• The most notable change from LeBron’s old models is the drastic changeover from Zoom Air to a full Air Max unit on the bottom of the shoe. This is the first time a full Air Max bag has been used in a basketball product.

• Since LeBron is a big player, his needs in a shoe require for it to be able to take a beating on court. However Nike was challenged to making the shoe more durable while simultaneously making it lighter in weight. Therefore, they employed Flywire technology, which we have seen previously in many performance products as well as a lot of the Nike Sportswear offerings in the Flymotion Cortez and Air Maxim.

• Jason Petrie wanted to focus in a day in the life of LeBron James as his inspiration. Calling from his lifestyle, be it luxury hotels, automobiles, high-end fashion, and on-court basketball references.

• The outsole has 5 flex grooves, representing the 5 players on the basketball court.

• The midsection bears 23 stripes, referencing his number.

• The outsole features a 3D decoder key which, when the shoe is rotated, displays LeBron’s credos — Passion, Fearless, Tradition, Community, Family & Loyalty

• 7 Flywire strands on the tongue reference the 7th model in his signature shoe series with Nike.

Finally, LeBron will be embarking on a 10 city world tour starting next week to promote his new sneaker in addition to a documentary about him titled, More than a Game

The sneaker itself will be released on October 24th, 2009. Check out more angles and colorways after the jump.

LeBron, Jason, & Kenan speak with the crowd and the world, via webcast

“Home” colorway

One of many alternate colorways

One of many alternate colorways

One of many alternate colorways