Kobe Bryant and the secret history of the black mamba - ESPN

NIKE STAFFERS SAT around a conference room table inside the company's Oregon headquarters in late 2002 examining a space-age material.

Black and tubelike, Tech Flex had commonly been found inside cars and airplanes. Its grip expanded and contracted whatever was placed inside it.

Staffers saw it as a possible foundation for the next frontier of a basketball sneaker, one that wouldn't feature laces.

Gentry Humphrey, a Nike executive tasked with marketing the shoe, looked at its braided sleeving. «It kind of looks like a snake,» he thought to himself. Others thought the same.

At home late that night, Humphrey searched the internet for more information about «the most badass black snake there is.»

The search didn't take long. The top result: black mamba.

The snake was described as lightning fast, agile and feared — the same qualities of the star NBA guard for whom they were designing the shoe.

Humphrey, who had worked at Nike since 1994, quickly prepared a presentation that featured the snake as the centerpiece of a new sneaker campaign. Alongside photos of the snake were videos of the NBA star attacking the basket.

Soon after, Humphrey showed the presentation to his colleagues. The synergy between the material, the black mamba and the NBA star felt natural, alluring.

«Everybody was in on it,» he told ESPN.

From there, it was time to create a global campaign featuring the black mamba, and present it to the player who would ultimately represent it.

That player was Michael Jordan.

TODAY, THE BLACK mamba is synonymous with Kobe Bryant, the late Los Angeles Lakers legend.

Countless posters, murals and commercials champion the intensity of his «Mamba Mentality.» Bryant founded an academy that bore its name. Mamba Day is Aug. 24 —