The Kobe A.D. Was the Most-Worn Shoe in the NBA, and Its Protro Changes Only the Engine

Nike put the Kobe A.D. Protro on shelves last week in Purple Stardust, and the second colorway follows almost immediately behind it. Laser Orange and Safety Orange arrives October 30, a saturated single-tone build with a deeper orange rand wrapping the heel, and it ships with a set of purple alternate laces and two insoles that do not match each other. For a model that waited nine years to get the Protro treatment at all, a week between colorways is an abrupt change of pace.

The Kobe A.D. released November 22, 2016, less than six months after Bryant played his final game, and it was the first signature shoe of his retirement. The build was very much of its moment. A Lunarlon midsole, a Zoom Air unit in the heel, and a breathable mesh upper laced through Dynamic Flywire cables. What happened after that is the part worth remembering. With no active endorser on the floor to sell it, the A.D. became the most-worn shoe in the NBA across the 2016-17 season, adopted by players who had no contractual reason to reach for it. Nike’s Kobe product manager, Jessica Davenport, describes that visibility as athlete-led, which is a careful way of saying the league chose it without being asked to. The design did its share of the work. Those long sweeping lines across the upper trace a racetrack, Bryant’s reference to the way a sports car holds a curve at speed, and they read as cleanly now as they did then.

The Protro work is almost entirely underfoot. React foam replaces the Lunarlon, which is the swap that changes how the shoe feels from the first step, and a ZoomX puck sits in the forefoot for push-off. The heel Zoom Air unit carries over from 2016 untouched. A midfoot shank was added for stability through hard cuts, the last was opened up to give the forefoot more room, and the blade traction pattern now covers more of the outsole and climbs partway up the sidewall. Above the midsole the changes are quieter. The upper is an embroidered textile rather than the original mesh, the rand around the heel is softer and more flexible than the one on the 2016 pair, and Dynamic Flywire survives the rebuild intact. Nike says the project ran two years and included sitting down with the designers who drew the original. Not one line of the exterior moved.

That restraint is the argument for this release. The Protro program has spent most of its life on shoes with the case already made for them, working through the numbered Kobes the way a label reissues a back catalogue it knows will sell. The A.D. never carried that kind of reputation. Nobody called it the best Kobe, and it landed in the strange season when its namesake had already walked off the floor for good. It earned the rebuild on minutes played rather than on affection, and among the Protros that have come before it that is a rarer qualification than it sounds.

Then there is the name. Nike’s own product listing calls this pair Laser Orange and Safety Orange and stops there, but both insoles carry “Mamba Eterno” in gold script, one set on purple and the other on teal, which is where the nickname circulating on release calendars comes from. The detail is worth comparing across the run. The Kobe 3 Low split the phrase across its two insoles so that neither one was complete on its own. The Kobe Dunk Low took its own route through the same idea. This pair simply repeats the phrase whole on both sides, which is the least clever of the three solutions and the one most likely to survive being worn.

Retail is $155. The original A.D. launched at $160 in November 2016, so the rebuilt version asks five dollars less in nominal terms a full decade later, which is close to unheard of in performance basketball. Inside the Kobe line itself the gap is wider still, with the Kobe 8 Protro “Shanghai Fireworks” sitting at $200. One caution on the figure. Nike’s own release article listed the Purple Stardust launch pair at $150 while the live product listing for both colorways reads $155, so the page is the number to trust rather than the announcement. Nike has also said the model will be stocked broadly at retail instead of held back, which is not how most recent Kobe releases have been handled.

The Nike Kobe A.D. Protro in Laser Orange and Safety Orange releases October 30 under style code IO8233-800 at $155. It goes up on Nike.com and is set to reach Nike Basketball accounts including Foot Locker and Finish Line, with the purple alternate laces included in the box.

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The Sneakers Team

The Sneakers Team is the editorial desk behind becausesneakers, founded and edited by Nick Engvall. Nick has spent more than two decades in the sneaker industry. He built the original Eastbay Blog, led the first dedicated sneaker team at Complex, ran the first UGC and seeding programs at Finish Line, was employee number nine at StockX, and served as Senior Director at Stadium Goods. He hosts the Sneaker History podcast, and his first book, Small Luxuries: Sneakers, arrives in October 2026 from Motorbooks. Release details on this site are checked against the brand's own product information before publication, and anything we cannot confirm is labelled rather than stated.

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