Nike Kobe A.D. NXT 360 'Infrared'
Colorway: White/Black-Infrared 23-Volt · Style code: AQ1087-100 · Release date: June 14, 2018 · Price: $697 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Nike Kobe A.D. NXT 360 'Mamba Day' (AQ1087-001) · Nike Kobe A.D. NXT 360 'Black Multicolor' (AQ1087-002) · Nike Kobe AD NXT 360 'Multicolor' (AQ1087-003) · Nike Kobe A.D. NXT 360 'White Multicolor' (AQ1087-102) · Nike Kobe AD NXT 360 'Yellow Strike' (AQ1087-700)
Flyknit changed how a shoe is made before it changed how one looks. Nike introduced the knitted upper in 2012 as a manufacturing argument (a single machine-knitted piece with support and stretch engineered into the yarn, replacing a stack of cut panels, seams and glued overlays), and by the middle of that decade it had reached basketball, where a seamless bootie can wrap an ankle without stiffening it. This model takes it to a full wrap, with almost nothing on the upper interrupting the knit, over React foam around the outsole edges with Lunarlon underneath. It is a technically dense shoe carrying the name of a player who had been retired for two years, with his signature on the heel counter. Infrared has been Nike's loudest accent colour since the 1990s, and it does the same work here.