Before he became the Black Mamba, Kobe Bryant was Lower Merion\u2019s silent assassin. At just 17, he dragged the Aces out of obscurity and into legend, averaging over 30 points a game and leading the school to its first state championship in over 50 years. No national spotlight, no LA lights \u2013 just cold gyms, packed bleachers and a kid who moved like he already knew the future.<\/p>\n
The family expansion includes two versions \u2013 a \u2018Home\u2019 variant in lighter tones and an \u2018Away\u2019 edition drenched in burgundy \u2013\u00a0which share the same distinct patterning and detailing. Nike currently has the ‘Home’ model\u2019s SKU pegged at a $120, with the release targeted for March 26, 2026.<\/p>\n
For more on the Black Mamba, make sure to the ‘Year of the Horse’, another design set to gallop in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before he became the Black Mamba, Kobe Bryant was Lower Merion\u2019s silent assassin. At just 17, he dragged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[770,766,763,767,769,183,765,185,184,186,768,764,771],"class_list":["post-662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lower-merion","tag-basketball-sneakers","tag-kobe-af1","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-kobe-high-school-shoes","tag-kobe-x-nike-collaboration","tag-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion-aces","tag-lower-merion-headlines","tag-lower-merion-news","tag-lower-merion-township","tag-nike-2026-release","tag-nike-air-force-1","tag-sneaker-releases-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}