Nike Zoom Kobe 4 POP 'Finals MVP'
Colorway: White/Concord-Metallic Gold · Style code: 354187-141 · Release date: July 22, 2009 · Price: $2827 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Nike Kobe 4 NBA Final MVP Away Sneakers (354187-001) · Nike Zoom Kobe 4 POP 'Del Sol' 2009 (354187-101) · Nike Zoom Kobe 4 'Bred' (344335-012) · Nike Zoom Kobe 4 'MLK' (344335-171) · Nike Zoom Kobe Venomenon 4 (635578-005)
Bryant's first three championships came in a row, from 2000 to 2002, alongside Shaquille O'Neal, and he took none of the Finals MVP awards for them. The gap that followed lasted seven years. When the Lakers won again in 2009 he was the centre of the team rather than half of it, and the Finals MVP went to him for the first time.
This is the shoe he wore doing it. The fourth signature model had already broken with basketball convention by being cut low (an argument he made repeatedly and won), and the Finals version dresses it in the Lakers' home colours: white leather with concord purple and metallic gold.
What sets it apart from an ordinary team colourway is the writing. Scribbled figures run across the toe box and the collar, pulling numbers out of that season, including the 61 points he scored at Madison Square Garden in February, at the time the highest total anyone had put up in that building.
It is dated July 2009 and listed at $120.