Interview: Kobe Bryant & Designer Eric Avar On The Nike Kobe V

LOW-CUT PROFILE
KOBE BRYANT, PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL PLAYER: "We looked at soccer and how these players put so much torque on their ankle but are still able to play in low-cut boots. I was sitting at home and I'm watching the Barca game and it's crazy the force they're working with. So my wheels just started turning, and I researched some things on my own. For me as a player, I thought, if I can play in low-cut shoes, I might feel more comfortable. I wasn't sure why, but I just kind of had this thing for the low cut. I met with the Nike guys and they helped me evolve the concept."

FLYWIRE
AVAR: "This sneaker has a similar construction (to the Kobe IV), but the main difference from the IV is the materials. We used Flywire again, because it is lightweight and torsionally strong, but this time we upgraded the construction with a thin thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) skin to hold the Flywire fibers. This casing results in a package that's exactly half the thickness and half the weight of the previous version. The skin is more pliable and more conforming, so it gives Kobe that security that is so important in a low-top shoe."

TOE BOX
MATT NURSE, SENIOR RESEARCHER, NIKE BASKETBALL: "We use force plates and make pressure measurements when we're working on a sneaker. The force plates work on a 3D scale, so we can we can measure the force vertically but also forward, backward and side to side. We need to make sure that the toe box is properly constructed to hold you in that mini-car accident you have when you change directions [when playing basketball]. When you land from a jump for example, you can have forces anywhere from two to 10 times your body weight under your forefoot and heel. We need to make sure you can play in an 82-game season and be protected, so we put a lot of reinforcement in the toe cap to keep the player safe."

HEARTBEAT TRACTION PATTERN AND SOLE DESIGN
AVAR: "On the outsole we tried to reduce as much weight as possible, to get after the overall light-weight aspect of the shoe. It wasn't one single component that saved weight, but more about looking at every little component to take out as much weight as possible. We did that a lot with the outsole, and we took the more common herringbone traction which you might see in a lot of Nike shoes, and exaggerated that a little bit into this heartbeat pattern. This pattern was part of the inspiration directly from Kobe. I remember sitting with him and we were talking a little bit afterward about inspiration for the shoe and he drew a heart on a piece of paper and slid it across the table to me. And I'm like "OK." [Laughs.]

HEEL
AVAR: "The decoupled heel (there is a split in the heel cup to allow for added floor contatct) allows for optimal motion during lateral and medial cutting. We sculpted it down to the heel a little more for a closer fit, and we also sculpted the arch as well. That was done in an effort to get a little more one-to-one fit, for added security."

KOBE CODE
AVAR: "Kobe is obviously one of the most recognizable athletes and icons on the planet, but there's also this mysterious aspect to his persona and his life. We wanted to have something that could acknowledge that aesthetically. We take the performance so seriously, but Kobe says all the time that he wants to have some fun with it. We developed a dot-matrix code which is actually a secret language, a secret Kobe language that we developed. It's a dot matrix language, and it will appear throughout the Kobe product this year."