Discogod

The Clippers did a similar thing during the last couple of San Diego years, introducing a new home uni a year before introducing the corresponding road uni (or unis in this case, as they used 2 different coloured road unis that year). The Bucks were another team to stagger the introduction of new home & road unis in the mid 70s, before introducing the first version of the Irish Rainbow unis. The Knicks also introduced their classic home unis a year before wearing the roads..I believe the 76ers did the same thing a few times too, although the Sixers' uni history is a convoluted clusterf*** that I haven't been able to get to the bottom of yet.

12 hours ago, kimball said:

I never realized this ... about the Sonics.

 

Back in the late '70s the Washington Bullets and Seattle Sonics met in back-to-back Finals. The Bullets won in 1978 and the Sonics in 1979. What I never noticed was the Sonics' uniforms between the two Finals. 

 

I knew the Sonics' jerseys in 1978 were the Bill Russell Celtic-inspired jerseys, but those were apparently just for the road! They wore the familiar arched "Sonics" jerseys at home. 

 

Here is a shot from Game 6 in 1978.

 

 

And, here is a picture of Game 7 in 1978.

 

 

The following year the Sonics added a matching road jersey. As evidenced by the this picture from the 1979 Finals ...

 

 

This really kind of blew my mind, because I just always assumed that the Sonics wore the same template jersey for both home and road. I know the Sonics wore similar home jerseys to the 1978 road jerseys as seen here (at least the year before -- with NY Nets jersey) ...

 

 

Does anyone have any information on that timeline? I'm going to dig a bit deeper, but I thought I'd put this out there to see if there is anything someone else knows more readily. 

I don't have the exact dates in front of me, but the Sonics introduced the Celtics-esque design when Bill Russell took over as coach in 1975. In 1977 they changed the home unis to the arch design whilst keeping the previous road unis, then introduced a matching road uni in 1978.

6 hours ago, KittSmith_95 said:

When the Jazz moved to Utah, why didn't they just use the Stars name again? 

Money. The Jazz were on the verge of going under by the time they moved to Utah and there just wasn't the funds to rebrand. Plus, the move wasn't approved until fairly late in the offseason (late June, I believe), leaving very little turnaround time to come up with new logos, uniforms etc.

They might have only made it through 3 games, but they made it onto the cover of Sports Illustrated!

They're very dark blue.

1 hour ago, Frylock said:

Adding to the pre-1996 NBA throwbacks...

 

November 17, 1994 - Cleveland at Portland, celebrating each team's 25th season (Portland actually had a 25th Anniversary logo that year)

 

 

Amazing! They even included the NBA 25th anniversary patch on the shorts!

Had no idea that this happened, and I've been researching NBA unis for 25+ years now - which I guess goes to show how poorly documented these things are. The only other game I know of was during the 1993-94 season, when the Celtics visited the Lakers. Both teams were supposed to wear throwbacks (I'm guessing 60s unis), but for whatever reason it never happened.

1 hour ago, Sodboy13 said:

This thread is wonderful, and it's unbelievable that we don't have an NBA uniform database like we do for the NHL, NFL, and MLB.

Oh, it's been tried. I've been a part of several such databases over the years, but none have ever got off the ground. Heck, my first website back in 1996 was a small page full of various jerseys I'd clumsily drawn in Microsoft Paint. It's one of my dreams to be able to view a site such as NHLuniforms.com or Dressed To The Nines dedicated to the NBA (and ABA, and might as well chuck the CBA in there too, they had some interesting unis).

Here's the article I'm assuming Octodude was talking about, from the May 16 1994 Toronto Star:

And to get somewhat back on topic, here's another story about the original Raptors unis, which had a few tweaks before they hit the court (most notably, removing red accents from the letters and removing the "Toronto" from the logo:

Both of these articles came from the pinned thread about logo & uni news stories at the top of this forum, a fantastic thread to pore through if you've a spare hour or six.

I'm pretty sure the Knicks changed their home unis to the classic version the year before they changed the road unis. That kind of thing was fairly common back then, right up to the early 80s.

I actually thought it was common knowledge that the Bullets wore orange at home. For a long time (pre-internet) I thought they only had 1 uniform set that they used both at home and on the road, because they were wearing the orange unis in every picture I saw.

Pre-1996 NBA throwback games:

27 November 1992, Timberwolves at Bullets:

13 January 1993, Warriors at 76ers - both teams wore 1966-67 unis (couldn't find a pic, but there's a clip in the 1993 NBA Jam Session video, where I first saw it)

2 December 1993, Supersonics at Bullets:

2 January 1994, 76ers at Nuggets:

22 April 1994, Bullets at Cavaliers - both teams wore 1975-76 throwbacks (again, no pic. I got this info from former Cavs GM Wayne Embry's autobiography)

 31 March 1995, Nuggets at Pacers:

42 minutes ago, Old School Fool said:

Also in that Sonics pic, the Champion logo is on the shorts. There was talk in this thread about how it never appeared on uniforms, but there it is!

Those aren't shorts, they're the warm-up pants.

2 hours ago, BShaw20 said:

When did the Sonics wear this retro?

22 December, 1993. They played the Bullets, with both teams wearing throwbacks.

The NBA claims that the first teams to wear throwbacks were for the 50th anniversary season in 1996-97, but there were numerous games going back to 1992 where teams wore them. I've got loads more pictures from these games (I think there was actually a thread about them here a while back), I'll get them posted later.

As promised, here's a few interesting pics:

1962-63 Syracuse Nationals team photo with a mismatched uni - there was no #3 on the Nats' roster that year, no idea who it is.

More mismatched unis with the '50 & '57 Rochester Royals:

The Bucks' Mickey Johnson with a double-decker Full Name On Back (the Bucks also had Marques Johnson, so simply using an initial wouldn't have sufficed):

A couple of pics of the '75 Warriors rare full name unis (and as a bonus, another shot of the first-year Jazz):

Some rare pics of the first year Buffalo Braves' home unis (with tail inconsistencies!):

Clyde Frazier during what I'm assuming is a Legends Game (interesting sidenote - the Legends game at All-Star Weekend featured the first cases of jersey ads in the modern era, being sponsored by Schick):

Odd numbers on the '97 Bullets (this was changed before the regular season started):

15 minutes ago, kimball said:

 

Speaking of the Nets. Are there any other teams in the NBA that ditched one design for another before coming back to the SAME design? And, I am not talking about the Jazz note logo because that jersey was modernized.

The Knicks went from the classic championship units to the navy-and-maroon set, then back a few years later.

I wish I could like this thread a million times.

I've got a ton of stuff in my archives, but I'm just about to go away for the weekend. I may post some stuff on Sunday night if I get a chance.

I think it's a safe bet that the Heat would have gone with "Florida" over "Miami" had they been the only team in that state. I'm still of the belief that the only reason the NBA expanded by 4 teams instead of 2 was to prevent existing teams relocating to either Minneapolis or Miami. They were always top of the list when relocation seemed on the cards in the 80s.

JerseyJosh, the Nets moved a few times - they started as the New Jersey Americans, moved to New York after a season and became the Nets and then moved back to Jersey in 1977. Other than that, there's only really the time they almost changed their name to the Swamp Dragons:

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/15155466/once-nets-seriously-considered-becoming-swamp-dragons

4 hours ago, kimball said:

 

I'm in that same boat.

 

There's some golden info in "In the Hornets' Nest" chronicling the Charlotte Hornets' first season. Before being awarded a team David Stern directed George Shinn to a couple of troubled franchises including the Jazz and the Clippers among other teams. 

 

I remember reading rumors of the Jazz and Nuggets merging, the group that bought the Kings to move them to Sacramento almost bought the Pacers in 1982 and the Kings almost moving to Dallas or Minneapolis back in the late 70s.

 

I love all that 'What If' history.

 

OH ... and then there was the NBA Expansion team awarded to Toronto in 1975, but there wasn't a group that could come up with the franchise fee so expansion was cancelled.

Funnily enough, I bought that book a couple of weeks ago. I'm just waiting for it to arrive (currently chugging through Terry Pluto's "Tall Tales").

Half the teams in the league had relocation threats in the 70s & 80s. The ABA kicked a lot of the established teams square in the nuts, and a lot of them found it hard to keep going. Combine that with escalating salaries, half-empty arenas and a negligible TV deal and it was a recipe for disaster. It wasn't until Stern became the Commissioner that the league found some stability (and of course Jordan, Magic & Bird didn't hurt). A lot of people have no idea how unsteady the NBA was back then, and how close it came to losing a good chunk of teams.

This is a pretty good article about the late 80s expansion:

http://articles.latimes.com/1987-04-19/sports/sp-2064_1_expansion-team

Been doing some digging myself - after he sold the Cavs, Stepien bought a CBA expansion team in Toronto and named them the Tornados. They played 2-and-a-bit seasons from 1983-85, and their logo was very similar to that proposed Towers logo:

Incredible find! I love anything like that related to the late 70s/early 80s NBA, when it seemed like teams were going to relocate, merge or just go out of business every week.

I wish I could find an article I had from c.1982 which detailed the NBA's tentative plans around that time - amongst other things, it had the Nuggets & Jazz merging, Spurs moving to Miami and Cleveland, Indiana & Kansas City folding outright!

4 hours ago, kimball said:

 

Lakers maybe. But, his Dallas stint tops all of them ...

 

Nah, I got you all beat - here's Rodman during his 3-game stint with the Brighton Bears in 2006:

1 hour ago, chrispw12 said:

 

With him being in the headlines Charles Oakley as a Washington Wizard

Some more Oak:

With the Raptors:

His early days as MJ's enforcer in Chicago:

I couldn't find any pics from his 7-game stint with Houston though...

Looks like the same font, just with the colours reversed, which has the effect of making the numbers & letters look thinner. The teal may be a little lighter too, although that might be the lighting throwing it off - I remember back in the early 90s, depending on the lighting at the various arenas, the Hornets unis looked anything from green to light royal.

Can't believe with how long I've been following the team and how much historical info I have that this is the first time I've seen that uni.

18 hours ago, kimball said:

 

It kinda reminds of when Ahmad Rashad played a preseason game with the 76ers as part of a promotional thing for Inside Stuff. 

 

 

Or when Mark Curry played a preseason game for the Warriors for the TV show "Hangin' With Mr. Cooper" (complete with Sir Charles in the wrong Suns uni!)?

Some more Alex English in the wrong uni...

After the Bucks, had a stint with Indiana:

Finished his career with a 1-year stop in Dallas:

During his 2 1/2 minutes with the Celtics during the '86 preseason:

And a case of right team, wrong uni:

25 minutes ago, kimball said:

 

Fascinating. 

 

And, aren't those the Pistons' silver jerseys too?

Yeah, the metallic ones they only wore for 1981-82.