Cleveland Cavaliers New Uniforms

[DG_ThenNowForever]

3 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

 

The white and (ugh) WINE uniforms from the last set were my favorite Cavaliers uniforms they've ever worn. I thought they were really classy and pretty recognizable as theirs in the world of basketball even if they were boring. These new ones do absolutely nothing for me. The spikes and random color inserts placed arbitrarily along with the hyper angled block font just looks like it was pulled from a pile of college basketball templates Nike had lying around. And is that beveling? Yeah they beveled the letters. It's the Bucks green and red uniforms from a few years ago except worse. The old ones were clean, these ones are cluttered and way too dark. I hate hate hate when a dark number is outlined with yellow or white or gold and placed on a dark background and these commit that offense.

 

I think the NBA is getting too close to college basketball/football territory where the teams change unis so often and wear so many alternates that team brands are being weakened as a result. The Cavs are an example. This is their third major uniform they've worn in less than ten years and that's in addition to all the stupid alternates and one-offs that they wear far too often. Does the inclusion of navy blue on the road uniform mean they are moving away from using black in random applications? That will probably appear on an alternate right? What the hell is this team's color combination?

 

It's damn near tragic that they wore black short sleeve hockey jerseys for their lone championship. The league should've never allowed that uniform to begin with, let alone worn in the biggest game of the season.

 

My very first comment on a new Nike set -- the Pacers -- was that it looked like a college football uniform. Not because there were shoulder pads or anything, but more because the whole thing looks so damn disposable. And as we've seen with Nike's work in NCAAB, NCAAF and soccer, that's the whole point.

[Sport]

47 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

 

My very first comment on a new Nike set -- the Pacers -- was that it looked like a college football uniform. Not because there were shoulder pads or anything, but more because the whole thing looks so damn disposable. And as we've seen with Nike's work in NCAAB, NCAAF and soccer, that's the whole point.

Disposable is a good word. "This stripe represents the wheat fields of BLAH BLAH BLAH" okay that's why you put it on the uniform, but does it look good, does it have staying power, is it something that can become synonymous with that team? Who cares, it'll be gone next month and you'll have some new element, shoehorned into making sense, taking its place. (See: UW's "Jaws of Husky stadium" becoming Razorback tusks when worn by Arkansas). 

 

This Cavs uniform is the opposite problem. What about it is special or meaningful to the Cavs? Absolutely nothing. It's a variation of one of their college fonts on a pretty generic looking template. Color me unmoved. 

 

For as much griping as the NFL gets about its 5 year rule I think it does a lot of good by holding teams accountable and establishing looks, even if bad, as recognizable of the teams who wear them. 

[Lights Out]

I like the Cavs' new look a lot better than the one they just ditched. It looks sharp and clean.

[OnWis97]

1 hour ago, McCarthy said:

 

The white and (ugh) WINE uniforms from the last set were my favorite Cavaliers uniforms they've ever worn. I thought they were really classy and pretty recognizable as theirs in the world of basketball even if they were boring. These new ones do absolutely nothing for me. The spikes and random color inserts placed arbitrarily along with the hyper angled block font just looks like it was pulled from a pile of college basketball templates Nike had lying around. And is that beveling? Yeah they beveled the letters. It's the Bucks green and red uniforms from a few years ago except worse. The old ones were clean, these ones are cluttered and way too dark. I hate hate hate when a dark number is outlined with yellow or white or gold and placed on a dark background and these commit that offense.

 

I think the NBA is getting too close to college basketball/football territory where the teams change unis so often and wear so many alternates that team brands are being weakened as a result. The Cavs are an example. This is their third major uniform they've worn in less than ten years and that's in addition to all the stupid alternates and one-offs that they wear far too often. Does the inclusion of navy blue on the road uniform mean they are moving away from using black in random applications? That will probably appear on an alternate right? What the hell is this team's color combination?

 

It's damn near tragic that they wore black short sleeve hockey jerseys for their lone championship. The league should've never allowed that uniform to begin with, let alone worn in the biggest game of the season.

I had not thought of that, but it's kinda true.  You have a few teams that either nailed it right away or had a good run of success and are not likely to messed with too much: Bulls, Lakers, Celtics, Spurs, etc.  But even those teams are wearing alts and the Nike multi-uniform treatment is going to water the identities down.  But the comparison to college basketball seems to be apt for the primaries with a lot of teams.  Even historic teams like the Sixers (post-black, even) mess with it every few years.

 

As for the Cavs, the LeBron era is the only time they'll probably ever be relevant for an extended period of time and he has three different uniform sets (with many uniforms in each) now.  Of course, if he'd spent his entire career in Cleveland, they'd probably still be using the original Lebron set.  But they nevertheless replaced a pretty solid set (with one I happen to prefer) right after he left.  And this?  This smacks of a team saying, sure Nike, do whatever.  They could at least have had the pre-Miami and post-Miami set for LeBron.  My opinion is that the wine and yellow look really, really good together and the blue makes it drab. So now, despite the weird fonts, I still think the Cavs will have an upper-echelon white uniform and a lower-echelon primary dark (or whatever Nike calls 'em).   

 

I really wish the NBA could stick to primary whites and darks with ONE alternate worn 5 times per year; ten tops.

 

The past primaries and yellow alternate would make the Cavs my personal favorite set of all time. They still are my favorite primaries but given how often they wore the blue jersey and the awful black sleeve jersey, I don't really remember the era too fondly.  I am well aware that my love of those primaries is about personal taste and that the original LeBron uniforms are much more well-liked.  But my point stands, LeBron's uniform history is embarrassingly watered-down, even if we ignore Miami.

 

Most of the other superstars had certain advantages over James: Most played before tons of alternates and uniform overhauls were the norm.  Most played for more historic/stable franchises.  But it's still too bad and I wish both Cleveland and the NBA could have watched out for this small element of his legacy (of course, I have no idea whether this even matters a little bit to regular fans).  

[Quillz]

11 hours ago, OnWis97 said:

I had not thought of that, but it's kinda true.  You have a few teams that either nailed it right away or had a good run of success and are not likely to messed with too much: Bulls, Lakers, Celtics, Spurs, etc.  But even those teams are wearing alts and the Nike multi-uniform treatment is going to water the identities down.  But the comparison to college basketball seems to be apt for the primaries with a lot of teams.  Even historic teams like the Sixers (post-black, even) mess with it every few years.

Exactly, and it echoes my thoughts from earlier. I don't think it's the NBA so much as it is too many NBA teams not understanding the importance of a consistent, solid brand identity. I mean, you can't fault the Cavs for milking every last penny out of LeBron and jersey sales, but it really comes at the expense of having no idea what their color scheme is, or what their look is. It's true a lot of teams do have alternates from time to time, but no one would ever mistake the Lakers, Celtics, Spurs, Bulls, for anyone else. Because those are teams that have picked a look and stuck with it.

[WavePunter]

Nike just adidased the Cavs..

[WSU151]

On 8/7/2017 at 8:53 PM, BlackBolt3 said:

I don't think the digital mockups do the Cavaliers uniform justice. I was somewhat indecisive about it until I saw this these pictures:

I really love how it looks with the real life materials. The yellow does seem to have a "pop" to it.

 

That Phoenix swingman "leak" was going to have beveled, bridge-arced wordmark too, right? Kind of weird that two new unis would have the exact same wordmark features.

 

(If that Phoenix swingman image was not real, let me know).

[truepg]

These unis are an upgrade over the previous set, as any would be. The white uni is a lot better-looking than the wine one. What comes to the use of navy in the latter, I like it on one hand, but feel like it would be closer quality-wise to the white counterpart had it not included it, and used yellow instead with white numbers. I also get the Warriors' 00's orange alternate uni vibe from it:

 

 

The downside of this new Cavs' set is, though, that the way the previous set was generic in a dated way, these are generic in a modern way, and don't have anything iconic of the Cavaliers. As bad as the previous set was, it had the multi-striped trim. This was a missed opportunity to use Cavaliers-style checkered trim, which would've looked great on these.

[MJWalker45]

Hoping the other two sets are not just recolors of this.

[JoshMcC1982]

Tweeted out and posted on a bunch of websites, but James put on the Icon jersey and posed today. Here's the pic:

 

[TVIXX]

59 minutes ago, JoshMcC1982 said:

Tweeted out and posted on a bunch of websites, but James put on the Icon jersey and posed today. Here's the pic:

 

*which will never be worn in the playoffs, because cavaliers

[mafiaman]

1 hour ago, JoshMcC1982 said:

Tweeted out and posted on a bunch of websites, but James put on the Icon jersey and posed today. Here's the pic:

 

 

Either that's a photoshop job or Lebron has been hitting the rogaine hard this summer!

[JoshMcC1982]

21 minutes ago, mafiaman said:

 

Either that's a photoshop job or Lebron has been hitting the rogaine hard this summer!

Well I found out LeBron posted it on Instagram first. Looking at photos recently it may be touched up based on that fact. 

27 minutes ago, TVIXX said:

*which will never be worn in the playoffs, because cavaliers

Which you are probably right. It will probably be some form of a black alternate or something. 

[Lee Noire]

That looks good on an actual player. Not bad at all.

[Ben in LA]

Too bad he'll wear it only one year before decamping to the Lakers lol 

[habsfan1]

Is there anything at all on the sides?

 

But without counting that, everything else looks beautiful. Simple, but well done.

[Conrad.]

^ yea, there's a couple small "swooshes" on the side of the top and shorts:

 

[habsfan1]

That looks incredible.

 

I'm also glad that the ads sorta blend in with the rest of the jersey like the Nike swoosh, instead of sticking out like a sore thumb. That's another thing on the plus side. It would look horrible if, for example, a red & black team had to wear a large bright green & blue patch outlined in white.

[Conrad.]

via some 2K vids, a look at the Cavs court:

 

[truepg]

Having the new global logo at center court is an L.