The story behind the birth of KOBE

The basketball shoes that Kobe wore in his rookie year, the 1996-97 season, were the Adidas EQT Elevation. At the time, he was signed with Adidas and wore them in the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, where he won at the tender age of 18.

He was signed with Adidas from 1996 to 2002, and for a short period from 2002 to 2003 he was a "free agent" not signed with any brand and wore Reebok and And1.

He then signed a contract with NIKE in the summer of 2003, but due to legal issues he had to wait a period of time before releasing a new signature model, so he played in the Zoom Air Huarache 2K4 and Zoom Air Huarache 2K4 from the 2003-05 seasons.

Kobe Bryant's first signature model, the Nike Zoom Kobe 1, was released in the 2005-2006 season. He continued to release 11 series of shoes until his retirement.

After his retirement, KOBE AD was born. Currently, at Kobe's request, they are continuing to reissue not just retro models, but retro models that have been improved to suit modern performance shoes, called "PERFORMANCE RETRO = PROTRO".