Nike’s Kobe 3 Low Protro “Mamba Eterno” released on Friday, October 30, with men’s pairs at $190. The UK and Spain got it at the same moment as each other, on SNKRS GB and SNKRS Spain, a few hours before the US. It’s one of four “Mamba Eterno” pairs for Día de Muertos this year.
Why Día de Muertos
Nike ties the colourway to Día de Muertos, the days when families in Mexico build altars to welcome back the people they’ve lost. The marigold is the holiday’s flower, said to guide the souls home, and this Kobe is dressed almost entirely in that orange.
Kobe had been here before. On Día de los Muertos in 2016, a few months after he retired, he and Nike unveiled the Kobe A.D. in a candlelit gallery in downtown Los Angeles. The name came from him: A.D. for “After Death”. He said it came from “thinking about the end of my career, and it almost feeling like a death because I’ve been playing basketball for so long.” Why launch it on that day? “It’s an appreciation of the light and the dark,” he said. “You can’t have one without the other.”
He played all 20 of his seasons in Los Angeles, where Latino fans took him as one of their own, and his wife Vanessa has Mexican heritage. Since his death in January 2020, “Mamba Eterno”, eternal Mamba, reads as exactly what the holiday is for.
The model matters too. The Kobe III is the shoe he wore through 2007–08, his only MVP season, and its cage was drawn to look like basketball netting. Here, the flowers grow underneath it.
Flowers under the cage
The whole pair is a warm orange, with a floral print running under the translucent TPU cage and across the toe.
The accents are where it gets busy. Nike lists Emerald Green and Hyper Grape. The lateral collar and Swoosh are Hyper Grape, and the official shots show the pair split down the middle: one shoe with a purple collar, the other in green. The tongue and laces fade from one tone to another, the insoles are hot pink, and the outsole carries “Eterno” in script.
Under it is the Protro update Nike gave the Kobe 3 in 2025: a full-length Air Zoom strobel and a Cushlon 3.0 foam midsole. It also brought more breathable materials, extra tongue padding and a lighter, retooled traction pattern.
The Mamba Eterno set
Three more pairs carry the same name. The Kobe Dunk Low Protro “Mamba Eterno” released the same morning at $130, and sold through at Nike in the UK and Spain the same day. A Kobe A.D. Protro in almost all orange has “Mamba Eterno” in script on its insoles. It released the same day too, at $155 on Nike’s product page. The fourth is a Kobe Air Force 1 Low in Sail, Hyper Purple and Emerald Green, sold by retailers under the same name. It was on Foot Locker’s US calendar for October 30 at $125.
The A.D. is the one that closes the circle: the shoe Kobe unveiled on Día de los Muertos in 2016, back in the holiday’s colours ten years on.
Can you still get a pair?
Yes. It’s on Nike’s SNKRS listing in the US, on SNKRS GB and on SNKRS Spain.
How it went
It hasn’t moved as fast as some Kobe Protros do. The day after the drop, Nike’s listings in all three markets still showed stock. On November 2, Nike’s US stock had all 26 sizes, 20 of them deep. Its European stock had 18 of 21, most running low. Resale has no settled number yet, so our hype score stays an estimate.
We’ve also covered the Kobe 10 Protro “5AM Flight” and the Kobe 6 Protro “Coals” leak. More on our Nike page.
