Nike Kobe A.D. NXT 360 'Mamba Day'
Colorway: Black/Coral-Stardust · Style code: AQ1087-001 · Release date: April 13, 2018 · Price: $800 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Nike Kobe A.D. NXT 360 'Black Multicolor' (AQ1087-002) · Nike Kobe AD NXT 360 'Multicolor' (AQ1087-003) · Nike Kobe A.D. NXT 360 'Infrared' (AQ1087-100) · Nike Kobe A.D. NXT 360 'White Multicolor' (AQ1087-102) · Nike Kobe AD NXT 360 'Yellow Strike' (AQ1087-700)
April 13 is a fixed date on Nike's basketball calendar, and this shoe used it. On that day in 2016 Bryant closed out a twenty-season career with 60 points against the Utah Jazz, and the anniversary has functioned as a release marker since.
The NXT 360 is the argument for a basketball shoe with no separate upper and lower half. Flyknit runs the full circumference of the foot - over the top, under the arch, all the way around - so there is no bonded midsole interrupting the line. The cushioning arrives instead as a drop-in sockliner: Lunar foam and React foam working together along the length of the foot, removable, closer to an insole with a job than to a midsole.
Black covers all of it, which leaves the knit texture and the wrap to carry the shoe visually. It shared its release day with a Kobe 1 Protro, two years into a retirement Bryant was spending on the design side of the product rather than in it.