The New Kobe 8 – The Legacy Lives On

In the past years, the “Kobe Bryant” series has grown to create an unbreakable legacy by pushing the limits of design and fashion at Nike. Starting from the Air Zoom Kobe 1 in 2006 to the Kobe 8 in 2012, the evolution of the Kobe’s has been quite clear. The versatile Nike Kobe 8 Protro continues the notion, composition, and widely praised low-cut construction while infusing some unusual technology – namely  – lighter, faster, and more adaptable – the full-length LunarLon outsole and the all-new Engineered Mesh.

The Release

Nike premiered the new silhouette of the Kobe 8 Protro in the ‘Halo’ colorway, celebrating Kobe Bryant’s 45th birthday. Partnering with Nike Basketball, Kobe Bryant’s widow, Vanessa Bryant, conceptualized the Halo shoe to honor Kobe’s birthday each year. It’s been the first pair from Nike to bear his name after his sudden demise in January 2020.

With Kobe’s birthday on August 23, Nike celebrated the icon’s competitive legacy through an elite two-day youth basketball tournament organized at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena, home of the superstar’s former NBA team, the Lakers. The Mamba League Invitational invited eight squads of the most talented high school players in L.A. to compete in the championship game on Mamba Day, i.e., August 24, because of his jersey numbers “8” and “24”.

The Black Mamba returns in all-white

The all-white Kobe 8 Protro ‘Halo’ sneakers have the same iconic look as the Kobe 8 but feature new styles in design and performance innovation. One of the more noticeable design updates included the embroidered Swoosh on the upper, with an embroidered Mamba logo on the tongue. Innovatively, designers replaced the Lunarlon midsole with Nike React foam for better comfort and responsiveness to help create a durable design overall and an imprint of Kobe Bryant’s signature placed on the side of the heel.  The team also updated the herringbone traction pattern for robust grip and performance on the sole. It also has black accents on the inside of the sole. The Kobe 8 sneakers are considerably the best performance shoes in basketball courts and sneaker cultures.

The eagle-eyed sneakerheads glued to the set for a first glimpse of the Kobe 8 Protro with an all-white look as pictured above. It’s been a real challenge for any sneakerhead to buy sneakers from Kobe Bryant’s signature line. In the last three years, loyal fans of the Los Angeles Lakers legend dealt with a never-ending saga that left Kobe Bryant’s sneakers line in doubt. The launch of the new Kobe sneakers has glittered their enthusiasm for collecting the Kobe 8 Protro paying homage to the former legend in basketball. 

The Process: Kobe 8

The material used in producing Kobe 8 was the “engineered mesh” to the upper, identical to Flywire. The resulting snaked-inspired look of the Kobe 8 shoe had plenty of assorted reptilian references – both the weave of the mesh upper and the upper knit-in black-and-sulfur-yellow played further into Kobe’s “Black Mamba” identity mimicking a snake’s scales, and a snake graphic curls logo on the shoe’s tongue. 

The lightest Kobe basketball shoes to date use a combination of an all-mesh upper providing 360-degree breathability, a midsole cushion made from a super-lightweight foam dubbed Lunarlon, and a 1-mm-thick rubber outsole that keeps Kobe low to the ground. The upper support system makes the shoe feel like an extension of the foot – a second skin precisely. Rationally, the lighter the shoe, the more it will help the athletes move faster and improve their performances on the court. 

Kobe Bryant played his last basketball game in 2016 with the Los Angeles Lakers. His influence on basketball can’t be explained in words. Kobe’s mentality in the NBA is dearly missed along with his devotion to revolution and performance with all of his shoes. He is forever immortalized in the hearts and minds of his fans worldwide, and a piece of him will keep playing on in every kid who uses his shoes to step onto their neighborhood court.