Kobe Bryant is one of the few elite basketball players that has a signature shoe with Nike. The company has signed some of the NBA’s greatest and there is no surprise that Nike releases incredible sneakers for its players.
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Low-cut basketball shoes are quite rare in the NBA, but Kobe Bryant has been playing with them for quite some time now. Gizmodo reports that the Lakers star has been wearing his new sneakers, the Kobe VIII, which weigh only 9.6 ounces. Not only is Bryant separating himself from other players with the low-cut, but he is wearing shoes that feel like “sweatpants.”
Kobe Bryant, the most decorated basketball player still playing in the NBA, has a new pair of shoes, the Kobe VIII, that’s so ridiculously light you can hardly tell you’re wearing them. Weighing at only 9.6 ounces, the secret in its lightness is in Nike’s new engineered mesh technology. It feels like sweatpants.
Kobe himself said that there’s a learning curve to wearing the Kobe VIIIs because basketball players aren’t used to having that flexible fitting upper. They’re used to the upper of shoe being a brick wall, not the elastic sweatpants you wear after Thanksgiving dinner.
Bryant has some of the lightest shoes in the NBA and the 9.6 ounce Kobe VIII is nothing compared to the shoes LeBron James wear which weigh 17 ounces.
The reason why the shoe is so light is because of the “engineering mesh.” Unlike most basketball shoes from the stiff uppers, the Kobe VIII essentially form to the wearer’s foot. The fit is more comfortable and the mesh theoretically makes you quicker on the court. The Lakers star is already head-and-shoulders above some of the competition in the NBA, and this shoe will only make him that much better on the court.
