Cover Kobe Bryant: gone but never forgotten (Photo: Getty Images)
Kobe Bryant: gone but never forgotten (Photo: Getty Images)
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Kobe Bryant retired ten years ago and has been gone for more than six. Yet his logo now graces Barcelona shirts, his sneakers remain performance staples, young athletes are being taught Mamba Mentality, and his approach to athlete entrepreneurship increasingly resembles the blueprint today’s stars are following
At guard. Six-foot-six. From Lower Merion High School. Five-time NBA champion. Eighteen-time All-Star. Number 24...
KOBE BRYANT.
For twenty years, introductions like that sent a charge through Los Angeles. Lakers public-address announcer Lawrence Tanter would draw out Kobe’s name as the lights came up and one of basketball’s greatest showmen took the floor. Ten years after his final NBA game, however, even the grandest introduction feels strangely incomplete.
His sneakers remain fixtures on NBA courts. The distinctive sheath logo has crossed into global football. “Mamba Mentality” has entered the vocabulary of athletes who never shared a court with him.
See also: NBA All-Star 2026: Why one of the world's most followed sports now wears a new face
Kobe Bryant retired from basketball in 2016. The Mamba never did
For most athletes, retirement marks the moment their cultural relevance begins to fade. Bryant seemed determined to make it the moment his relevance expanded.
Even before his final game, he was laying the foundations for a second act that looked remarkably different from his first. He poured energy into business ventures, built a multimedia studio, wrote books and eventually won an Academy Award. Basketball made Kobe Bryant a household name; his post-basketball ambition was to transform the principles that fuelled his success into something capable of travelling much further.
The clearest expression of that philosophy was “Mamba Mentality”. Despite the mythology that would eventually surround it, Bryant’s own definition was remarkably simple: the constant pursuit of becoming a better version of yourself. His interpretation of that pursuit, however, could be unforgiving. It demanded obsessive preparation, a near-forensic attention to detail, and relentless repetition so that, when the decisive moment arrived, almost nothing was left to chance.
Bryant described it as “focusing on the process and trusting in the hard work when it matters most”. The famous 4am workouts were part of it, but so was the intellectual curiosity behind them: studying opponents, asking questions, dissecting weaknesses, and relentlessly searching for another edge.
Above The Mamba Mentality: How I Play is an autobiographical book by NBA player Kobe Bryant (Photo: courtesy of @kobebryant/Instagram)
The Mamba Mentality: How I Play is an autobiographical book by NBA player Kobe Bryant (Photo: courtesy of @kobebryant/Instagram)
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Over time, that intensely personal philosophy became its own language. Nike played with the idea as early as 2012, when its wonderfully absurd KobeSystem campaign placed Bryant in front of accomplished figures from other worlds and asked, what comes next? When Kanye West protested that he was already the best, Kobe responded with the now-famous riddle: “But are you a different animal and the same beast?” The joke was deliberately nonsensical; the philosophy underneath it was not. Mamba Mentality could apply to an NBA player taking the final shot, a footballer preparing for a Champions League match, an entrepreneur building a company—or even a part-time writer discovering, several paragraphs too late, that Kobe Bryant is particularly difficult to contain within a word count.
Kobe understood that influence could reach further than anything recorded in a trophy cabinet. Reflecting on life after basketball in his Bryant Stibel biography, he put it plainly: “Championships come and go, but if you really want to create something that lasts generations, you have to help inspire the next generation.”
The Black Mamba began as an alter ego crafted for the basketball court. Mamba Mentality gave everyone else a way into it.
Storytelling beyond the scoreboard
Storytelling gave Kobe another canvas. Through Granity Studios, he translated the lessons of sport into film, books and media. His first great post-basketball crossover began, fittingly, with a goodbye. Dear Basketball, adapted from the poem announcing his retirement, paired his narration with hand-drawn animation from Disney veteran Glen Keane and a score by John Williams. In 2018, the five-minute film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, finding room in Kobe's already crowded trophy cabinet for an Oscar.
Granity went on to produce books and series spanning basketball, tennis and fantasy, while ESPN's Detail turned his obsessive film study into something audiences could learn from.
Above Chadwick Boseman and Kobe Bryant (Photo: courtesy of @kobebryant/Instagram)
Chadwick Boseman and Kobe Bryant (Photo: courtesy of @kobebryant/Instagram)
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From endorsement to ownership
Kobe also mastered the art of turning instinct into capital. In 2014, he invested US$6 million in sports drink company BodyArmor, contributing to its creative direction and marketing as it challenged Gatorade. “The model has always been for entertainers to get sweat equity, but I wanted to progress beyond that,” he told Forbes. Through Bryant Stibel, the investment firm he formed with entrepreneur Jeff Stibel, his interests eventually stretched from Epic Games to LegalZoom. Investor Chris Sacca recalled Kobe calling him at 3am from his physical-therapy treadmill, eager to discuss entrepreneurship and investing. The obsession had found a new focus. When Coca-Cola acquired BodyArmor in 2021 at a US$5.6 billion valuation, Kobe's bet had become one of the defining athlete investments of its era.
The shoe that refused to retire
Perhaps the clearest evidence of Kobe's continued relevance can be found on NBA players' feet. During the 2025–26 season, the Kobe 6 Protro was the league's most-worn sneaker, with four Kobe models ranking among the top ten. Protro, short for “performance retro”, was Kobe’s answer to the conventional reissue. The familiar silhouette remains; underneath, Nike updates the cushioning, traction and materials for the modern game. Think classic car, modern engine. Jalen Brunson wore his Statue of Liberty-inspired Kobe 6s throughout the New York Knicks' championship run, even as he was crowned Finals MVP.
Their reach now extends beyond basketball. For a second consecutive season, the Kobe sheath appears alongside FC Barcelona's crest on its 2026–27 away kit, complete with snakeskin textures and a message hidden inside the collar: “Leave the game better than you found it.” Kobe's identity is now woven into the shirt of one of football's most recognisable clubs.
Mamba Mentality travels east
Kobe's relationship with China began remarkably modestly. On his first visit to Beijing in 1998, he helped run a basketball clinic for about a dozen children; barely anyone noticed an NBA player was in town. A decade later, during the Beijing Olympics, LeBron James admitted: “I thought I was famous until I got here with Kobe.” That connection continues to shape the brand. When the Chinese zodiac entered the Year of the Snake in 2025, Nike declared it the “Year of the Mamba”, releasing a Kobe 5 Protro with Mandarin detailing and a China-exclusive red colourway. Its campaign urged fans to “过个狠年”— to “have a tough year”—by deliberately seeking difficult challenges. The campaign even references shouting “Kobe!” when confronting limits—a ritual familiar to anyone who has ever taken a beer-pong shot or attempted an unnecessarily ambitious throw into a bin.
The next generation
Bryant’s influence was never just confined to products. He trained players, watched film with them and challenged them. Kobe once said championships would come and go; inspiring the next generation was how something became lasting. In 2026, that generation is not difficult to find. Some are winning championships in his shoes. Others grew up speaking his language.
His legacy has not been frozen in highlight reels or nostalgia. It continues to move through basketball, business, football and culture, shaped both by the ideas Kobe left behind and by a generation finding new uses for them. Today is August 24, Kobe Bryant Day. His most enduring achievement? That the Mamba Mentality outlived the Mamba.
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