Throwback Thursday – Adidas KB8 II Black/Imperial/Silver

Game 1 of the 2008 NBA Finals is only hours away. Once again a major sporting event has been an influencer on which shoe to pick for Throwback Thursday. For this week, let’s rewind a decade to 1998 which in the fall saw the release of the Adidas KB8 II, Kobe’s second signature shoe.

Kobe wore the KB8 II in his third season in the NBA in the 1998-99 season that started late due to the NBA lockout. In the shoe Kobe displayed his growth as a player averaging 19.9 points, 5.3 boards, and 3.8 assists per game. Like the Adidas KB8, the shoe featured the Feet You Wear technology giving the wearer better stability, flexibility, and control on the court. Feet You Wear was the cushioning system of choice for Adidas Equipment shoes for the last half of the 1990’s, but unfortunately Adidas stopped producing shoes with the technology since shortly after the turn of the century.

Inventor Frampton Ellis came up with the idea and earned his first patent for an athletic shoe designed to limit ankle injuries by mimicking the bare foot. He licensed the technology to Adidas in 1994 and only 2 years later it was on the feet of Steffi Graf when she won the 1996 US Open. In 2001, Frampton Ellis claimed that he was not being paid proper royalties and chose to sue Adidas. A settlement was reached between the two sides and unfortunately Feet You Wear is something of the past.

Adidas has been bringing back many of the shoes Kobe wore while with Adidas slightly having to change the name from KB to “Crazy” and removing any images of him as well. So far we have seen the Crazy 8 (KB8), Crazy 1 (Kobe 1), and this summer Adidas is releasing many special colorways of the Top Ten 2000, the shoe Kobe wore in his rookie year. Check out a throwback photo of Kobe guarding Garnett while wearing these shoes as well as many more photos and throwback commercials after the jump.