As mentioned earlier today in the Jordan Olympia Supreme Melo PE profile, the USA Basketball Team will play a number of “Friendlies” games in China to prepare for the upcoming Beijing Olympics. In honor of this special occasion, Nike will release three special athlete sneakers with Carmelo Anthony’s sneaker being the first. The other two shoes will be Kobe Bryant’s Mamba Hyperdunk, previewed in late June, and LeBron James’ Zoom Soldier II PE. Kobe’s sneaker will come in Team USA’s colors and will feature a lasered snake design on the toe. It will come in a specially designed box depicting snakes, his number, and Chinese characters translating into “Solidarity”, “A long, long time” and his jersey number. LeBron’s shoe features a Chinese character print design on the heel which travels along the midsole and fades away as it reaches the toe. This print is also contained on the ankle, while a lasered picture of a lion is features on the heel tab. The Chinese characters translate into “Land” and LeBron’s jersey number. The box for the pair also features this lion picture, the Chinese characters as seen on the shoe, and his number. Both pairs are expected to drop sometime soon, during late July or August. via Niketalk

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