Kobe Bryant’s signature shoes keep his memory close to those in NBA’s bubble
ORLANDO, Fla. — Hall of Fame point guard Jason Kidd, an assistant coach with the Lakers, looked at his sneakers while standing on the court. His eyes fixated on the logo atop the tongue of the white and black low-top shoes, the sheath that’s become synonymous with Kobe Bryant.
It might seem like a little thing, but a lot had to happen for Kidd to be here, inside the NBA bubble, wearing one of his favorite pairs of shoes. He packed four pairs for the team’s trip.
“When you’re on the other side, you never want to wear the enemy’s shoe. That’s an old-school thing for me. If Kobe saw that, he’d think, ‘Oh, he idolizes me. I’ve got him,’” Kidd said.
The reason why Kidd wouldn’t wear the shoes before is the reason why so many are wearing them now, Bryant’s signature kicks becoming the unofficially most popular shoe in the bubble. At the Lakers’ practice Tuesday, at least 13 players, coaches and staff members wore Bryant’s shoes.
The Lakers’ opponents aren’t any different.
“You see the effect that he had on the world. Me growing up, I was a Kobe fan, Kobe fanatic ... it’s my favorite shoe to play in,” Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo said. “I’ve been playing in them this whole playoff run, so can’t stop now.”
Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka, once Bryant’s agent, was involved in the design process for the signature Nike shoes, sitting in on meetings as his top client agonized over every decision. The sessions for the Kobe 5 — one of the most popular models of the shoe — are replayed inside Pelinka’s brain every time he laces up a pair.
Whenever the Lakers are on the court, it’s a smart bet that Pelinka has a pair on his feet.
“When I put them on, it just triggers so many incredible memories of sitting around a table where Kobe would be collaborating with the Nike designers about how he wanted the shoe to look and the inspiration behind it,” Pelinka said. “Those sessions were just so memorable,
with him pulling inspiration out of all these unexpected places — like how a great white shark swims and building that into how a shoe should work and building that, the way he’d want the material on his shoe to fit so it would give him an advantage on a certain footwork move he’d been working on. He was kind of a Da Vinci-like designer — every detail was so thought through.
“... He was obsessed with the details. He was always reverse-engineering life, always look at the details. And when I put on that shoe, that’s the inspiration I get — how am I going to make the most of this moment, this day, this game. That’s what he stood for. That’s how he approached life.”
Bryant and his daughter Gianna were among the nine who died in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26, pushing the Lakers franchise into a very public mourning for one of the NBA’s icons.