Next Season’s NBA Christmas Day Jerseys Released

In years past, the NBA Christmas Day jerseys was a chance for the NBA to get a little futuristic and sample some different looks and even technologies involving uniforms. In years past we’ve seen different placement of names on the jersey, different alternate logos and even putting sleeves on a basketball jersey. Now it appears that the NBA is going away from all of that stuff and has decided to give the jersey an old school look, which actually makes the jerseys look pretty sick. Unfortunately, this won’t be the first big production in the new partnership the NBA has with Nike.

Although Christmas is a longtime from now, this current NBA season is in full swing, and the teams haven’t been picked yet for the Christmas Day matchups, it appears that Paul Lukas at Uniwatch.com has received some insider information about the scheme for the jerseys.

Now it’s time to leave it to the jersey expert as Lukas breaks down the jerseys.

Okay, that’s a lot to digest, so let’s go one item at a time:

1. No sleeves! No nickNOBs! In short, no gimmicks. Refreshing.

2. Remember, we don’t yet know which teams will be playing on Dec. 25, or even how many games there will be on that date, because the NBA hasn’t yet released the 2015-16 schedule. (For reference, last year there were five games on Christmas.) So we won’t be seeing all of these designs on the court, but the designs were developed months ago, so they did one for every team, just in case.

3. The script chest insignia are meant to evoke the feel of the fancy script on a Christmas card. I think most of them are pretty nice on their own, although the repeated template waters down the visual effect a bit. I’m not sure why they chose to have the scripts running uphill with the uni numbers offset to one side, but I like it — reminds me of the Cavs’ uniforms from the first LeBron era.

4. The heavy use of cream, instead of white, is meant to evoke a feeling of parchment. Strictly speaking, it’s not cream — it’s greige. I initially thought that this was a nonsense term cooked up by the Adidas marketing department — a contraction of grey and beige — but it turns out it’s a real term for fabric that’s neither dyed nor bleached. The plan is for the NBA to feature this as a sustainability storyline — “Hey, no dyes!” That’s ridiculous, of course: If you really want to promote sustainability, just wear your regular uniforms on Christmas instead of creating a set of disposable one-day designs.

But whatever — marketing nonsense notwithstanding, this color looks great. And some of the resulting color combos are super-tasty, like the Suns’ cream and orange, the Nets’ cream and black, and the Wizards’ cream, red, and gold.

5. It’s hard to see on the mock-ups, but the NBA logo above the NOB will be shown in a splotch of sealing wax, which is meant to evoke the feel of an old-fashioned Christmas card:

6. There will supposedly be “glazed sugar ornamental shiny surfaces” on the fabric and trim. I have no idea what that’s going to entail, but let’s beat the rush and start making fun of it now.

7. The mock-ups don’t provide a very good sense of the number font, because they used double-zero for all of the jerseys. Here’s a view of two more numerals — it’s not much, but it’s all I have:

8. I like how they worked certain teams’ visual signatures into the jerseys, like the Blazers’ diagonal stripe and the Wizards’ two-tone design. Wish they’d found some excuse to skip the Kings’ garish pointed side panels, though.

9. As some of you may have figured out by now, four teams are missing. I’m not showing the Bucks’ or Sixers’ designs, because that would provide hints as to what those teams’ new regular season uniforms look like, and I’ve made promises not to reveal anything regarding those two teams. I haven’t made any similar promises regarding the Raptors, but I’m not going to show their Christmas uni either, just to preserve a bit of mystery.

That leaves the Hawks. They have a new regular season uni in the pipeline as well, and I haven’t seen or heard any details about it. But if their Christmas design is any indication, the standard uni is gonna give us plenty to talk about:

I don’t know what to make of that pattern on the jersey and the sides of the shorts, but it sure looks, uh, interesting. As for the lime green trim on the shorts, that used to be a Hawks color. Perhaps it’s going to be again..? On the other hand, lime green doesn’t appear on any of the other Hawks merch shown in this catalog, so who knows. (And speaking of other merch in the catalog, the Clippers merch all shows that new “LAC” logo that I first reported on last month.)

Overall: Very, very nice — well done, people. And to all a good night.

(H/T Uniwatch)