Nike honors Kobe Bryant before his final game

By

Obi Anyanwu

Published
Apr 13, 2016

Kobe Bryant has had an illustrious NBA career that included five NBA Championships, a NBA MVP award, two NBA Finals MVP honors and 18 NBA All-Star team inclusions. The Charlotte Hornets selected Kobe at the NBA Draft in 1996 and traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers where he played for 20 years. On Wednesday, April 13, Kobe will play in his final NBA regular season game.

 
The Black Mamba signed with Adidas before his rookie season and jumped ship to Nike to become one of the premier faces on the brand’s endorsement roster. To celebrate Kobe’s final NBA season, Nike released an ad featuring a number of athletes, including LeBron James, Tiger Woods, Serena Williams, Roger Federer and others sharing their thoughts and feelings about the Mamba.
 
The most recent Nike advertisement titled, “The Conductor” ran on April 13, which Nike is calling Mamba Day, and features Kobe leading a chorus of basketball fans, announcers, cheerleaders and NBA players singing about how much they dislike him. The humorous commercial pays homage to all of the sports fans that had to watch their favorite team fall to the Los Angeles Lakers in the past 20 years.

Kobe has helped the Nike brand expand to China throughout the years, and in 2015, he partnered with Alibaba Group to create a series of Kobe branded products. Nike also released a farewell ad tailored for the Asia market. In addition, the sportswear brand is launching the Kobe 11 Mamba Day iD sneakers at the tipoff of the final game of his career against the Utah Jazz.

 
The NBA All-Star announced his retirement from basketball in November via a poem that was published on The Players Tribune.
 
His final game with the Los Angeles Lakers against the Utah Jazz will be at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The final game tipoff is at 10:30pm EST.