- Jan 2, 2014
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Man that's the majority of Kobe's releases after he retired unless it was a limited release or special pair.
THE OFFICIAL NIKE KOBE FOOTWEAR THREAD: RIP LEGEND 1978-2020. MAMBA FOREVER | 8-24-24
- Thread in 'Nike' Thread starter Started by thapointguy,
- Start date
Man that's the majority of Kobe's releases after he retired unless it was a limited release or special pair.
- Oct 14, 2008
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People who play ball want them because they are still some of the best basketball shoes today.
Those of us who no longer play but wore them when we did love them for casual wear for the nostalgia.
And well then you got the hype beasts unfortunately
- May 12, 2013
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these gigis are utter garbage
Nike has released the Pandas 5000 times and they still sell out, that shows that if the public actually likes something, demand is hard to quench. They could’ve made 3 million pairs of the Jordan 1 Chicago instead of 500K and released a percentage of it every quarter and it would sell out every time. They have a ton of stuff in their vault that would sell just as well, yet they waste time releasing 5000 garbage colorways of Jordan retros that sit for months. Nike’s strategy is let’s make a bunch of garbage all year and have a high demand release a few times a year and greatly undersell it.
They don’t sell Kobes for two years and the best they can do is 40K for the Gigi 4? Nike isn’t just a **** company, they’re also stupid.
Purposely releasing ugly colorways just to create pent up demand for good looking ones is a crazy business model. Whatever works I guess. You’re absolutely right.
- Jan 25, 2006
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i was watching nightwings video a few days ago (can't remember which one) and i learned something interesting.
he said it costs around $10,000 for a company to make the mould for EACH SIZE. so a full size run will cost well over $100k just to produce a shoe in mens sizes.. now add kids and we're in the $200k+ just to create a shoe.
then add designer time
material sourcing
prototypes
marketing
labour
if that 10k per size is correct, it's easily over 500k just to launch one shoe
which leads me to this..
there's no way nike throws out old moulds unless they become unusable. so they already have these moulds for the protro 4, 5 and 6 (since they re-did them compared to the OG's), so they LITERALLY do not need to spend any extra money to get the line going again full throttle.. all they gotta do is get the materials and get to work, but they're not. they're artificially limiting supply. there is no material shortage because if there was nike wouldn't be releasing much of anything. most materials can be repurposed/recycled and used across multiple different products.
he said it costs around $10,000 for a company to make the mould for EACH SIZE. so a full size run will cost well over $100k just to produce a shoe in mens sizes.. now add kids and we're in the $200k+ just to create a shoe.
then add designer time
material sourcing
prototypes
marketing
labour
if that 10k per size is correct, it's easily over 500k just to launch one shoe
which leads me to this..
there's no way nike throws out old moulds unless they become unusable. so they already have these moulds for the protro 4, 5 and 6 (since they re-did them compared to the OG's), so they LITERALLY do not need to spend any extra money to get the line going again full throttle.. all they gotta do is get the materials and get to work, but they're not. they're artificially limiting supply. there is no material shortage because if there was nike wouldn't be releasing much of anything. most materials can be repurposed/recycled and used across multiple different products.
- Jun 21, 2015
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While I also want Nike to make more Kobes for us, you gotta remember that Nike makes more than just Kobes. You brought up material supply. The other shoes that Nike sell much more of also use those materials as well. People who buy Kobes are just a small portion of Nike's customers, they sell way more merchandise to the general public who has no idea who Kobe even is.
- Jan 25, 2006
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i know, but that's not an excuse tbh.
nike makes a lot of colourways for all shoes.. there are also a ton of take down models or trash models that use the same materials that could easily be allocated accordingly. but they rather put them in an $80 shoe that will hit outlets for $50
- Jun 21, 2015
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They probably still make more money from those than making more pairs of their signature basketball line.
- Jul 1, 2014
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Even at those heavy discounts I'm pretty sure they're making profit. I'm sure they make a ton of bread off running shoes that have to be bought frequently because of how fast they get burnt thru. The pegasus line alone should generate a ton of money.
They don’t make more because they don’t want people talking about how played out they are and making memes about how you look like a NPC wearing them
The fastest way to kill hype is to flood the market with so many they become cheap enough that you see little kids rockin them everywhere. Exclusivity matters
Nike is the opposite of stupid here. What’s actually stupid is what Adidas did by mass producing NMDs
- Dec 24, 2016
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NMD, UB, Panda dunks RIP.
- Aug 9, 2014
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- Feb 9, 2008
- 20,959
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Didn’t know Kobe felt that way about the Adidas line… I blame the Kobe 2 lol
- Jun 21, 2015
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- Sep 5, 2000
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Lol. He changed his number to 24 because of his hatred of Adidas.
- Oct 28, 2013
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This is Mamba Mentality. Shaq tells a story about telling Kobe there's no I in team, and Kobe said "I know, but here's an M and an E in that motherf*c*er."
There's a good reason why Kobe hated Adidas. The shoes were ugly and Adidas dragged it out legally, when he wanted out. Kobe had to pay Adidas $8M to get out of his contract in 2002. Then signed with Nike in 2003 and didn't get his first signature sneaker until 2005. The rest is sneaker history. And he changed his jersey number to start fresh and picked 24 to one up MJ from what KG said. I can see that coming from Kobe.
There's a good reason why Kobe hated Adidas. The shoes were ugly and Adidas dragged it out legally, when he wanted out. Kobe had to pay Adidas $8M to get out of his contract in 2002. Then signed with Nike in 2003 and didn't get his first signature sneaker until 2005. The rest is sneaker history. And he changed his jersey number to start fresh and picked 24 to one up MJ from what KG said. I can see that coming from Kobe.
- Sep 5, 2000
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Nah. He changed it to 24 because he caught wind that Adidas was about to retro his first pair of shoes and had rebranded them from the KB8s to the Crazy 8s. Kobe wanted to ruin their marketing plan and changed his number.
As for his shoes - the 2K4 Huaraches were supposed to be Kobe’s first pair of shoes, but Nike had to change it up due to him catching a case in Colorado. There are samples out there which had an 8 ball logo instead of the huarache logo.
Honestly, Kobe could have avoided that whole ordeal with Adidas had he signed with Nike after his first deal with Adidas expired. The gold and eggplant Flightposite 1s were intended for Kobe. Not as his signature shoe, but he’d be the main guy in the ads for them.
- Feb 9, 2008
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Yeah I remember him paying to get out the contract with Adidas. And yeah, the shoes were ugly…well the Kobe 2 was. Today, some of those Adidas models he wore look really good to me. No hope for the 2, but the 1 has really grown on me. That sleek futuristic build is pleasing to the eye these days. 97s are nice as well.
What’s the point of hype when you’re the biggest company with the largest market share by far? Yeezy was the only real competition and they were still far behind, now they’re gone. Nikes best sneakers sold at JC Penney in the 90s, Jordans were easily accessible, and that didn’t hurt them in the long term, in fact, it created a whole generation of people with nostalgia for Nike products. The idea that everything has to sell out is BS, especially when you’re the only company on the hill. Even if I were to grant you your point, Nike is undersaturating the market far more than they need to be.
- Jul 12, 2013
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Nike doesn’t need it to be this exclusive to maintain hype. I haven’t hit on any Kobe shoe since his passing (or really anything on SNKRS). There is clearly a demand for them, and nike will not allow their customers to purchase shoes they want. To me, it just makes me less likely to purchase shoes from the brand. I don’t have a ton of time to mess around with SNKRS.
The point is Nike is prioritizing long term profits over short term profits. You can complain all you want but ultimately it’s good business to maintain hype by keeping their hype kicks out of discount stores and off little kids’ feet as much as possible lol
- Aug 10, 2012
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This is evidence that the shoe game is f'd up for loyal fans and true enthusiasts who want stuff like this when garbage like this ends up with them instead. This footwear doesn't match a madam who pimps out her untalented kids.
Y'all got some good memories and points with these.
I vaguely recall that story about Kobe refusing to sign some Adidas crap Nick Young presented to him.
Adidas has always come up a loser because they either spurned signing eventual superstars or couldn't keep them.
Kobe paid to get out of his deal with them in 2002 because he was dissatisfied with them.
They f'd up in 1984 with passing on Michael Jordan when he wanted to sign with them because of their asinine idea to prioritize marketing big men instead. Kids don't aspire to be 7 foot centers because that height isn't common in society. Athletic, skilled guys will always relatable to kids.
They f'd up again 19 years later when they passed on LeBron James in 2003 all because they didn't want to pay him. He was supposedly impressed with their pitch and design concepts in a meeting. Sonny Vaccaro tried to persuade them that LeBron was worth the $100 million after he learned about the stalemate.
I recall Kobe wasn't happy when Adidas rebranded those shoes to Crazy 8 after he left them.
That's true that accusation caused a delay with Kobe having a signature for two whole years after signing with them in 2003.
I was never aware that he signed an extension with Adidas. I assumed it was the initial deal when he entered the NBA.
That's awesome someone recalls when $100+ Nike & Jordans were sold in JCPenney in the '90s. That decade sure was the good old days when you can walk in a pick up any new release easily without having to line up. They didn't even have release dates because they just put them out for sale when the store received them. You could pick up new stuff weeks after stores got them.
- Aug 9, 2014
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Kris Jenner hit on snkrs. FOH 
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Good points by everyone. I think we can all agree we miss being able to wear Kobe’s. I used to dog mine on the court and then retire them into lifting / walking shoes. Got some nice pictures of my honeymoon wearing Kobe’s in the ruins of Pompeii in Italy lol. Traction, lockdown and cushioning were 10/10 on that volcanic ash
