Digby

There have been some swings and misses, for sure, but better than not swinging at all. If you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor. Biggest problem is the obnoxiousness of the current Adidas template, unfortunately. Somewhat detracts from all the good bespoke design work we’re seeing.

I actually like SKC’s effort there, I know it’s similar to the previous one but looking at them side by side, this is a much more attractive looking application of the hoops, to me. Last one just looked like four strips of tape applied to the front. Vancouver’s a similar boat, some of these identities have to be changed by rule but you also don’t need to reinvent the wheel (though I hate their red numbering!). Love FCD doing a burn tribute but feel like there had to be a more elegant way than a guacamole-colored fire emoji pattern.

IDK, it's cool that they really went for it, but the mismatched back/front bugs me, the whole color scheme looks more Timbers to me (especially with the sponsor), and I really don't think Bruce Lee and the Sounders have anything to do with each other regardless of where the guy went to high school.

I love the Colorado kit actually, and find the sunset gradient down the side to be maybe a little much. The graphic and the color scheme both say “Rapids” but are also tweaked enough to be a fresh different look and not just a boring color swap. I think that’s really smart, can’t ask for more! (Well, again with the overwrought marketing campaign.)

Agree, I'm dunking on the silly video but it's a sharp look and very fitting for their new crest (I wish they put this out last year to go with the launch). New England looks best to me with a healthy mix of red, navy and white; the printing in navy mostly gets us there but I might've liked to see those little collar/sleeve cuff trim bits in navy instead, but not a huge complaint. Actually I'd like to see this and the home kit swap their respective shorts, for ideal Revs color balance and visual interest in uniform contrast.

Agree on the color combo being nice but diminished with these washed out shades. For me the bigger issue is that it just doesn’t feel like the Red Bulls at all. Why is a team in New Jersey collaborating with a “luxury sportswear” designer from LA? Do they have any clue how to brand and market this team that’s in one of the most fertile soccer territories in the US? (I know the answer to the latter question.)

Revs are back to having a nice kit but this is the most overwrought reveal video I’ve ever seen.

Bucks needed 40 from Holiday and 36 from Giannis to beat an entirely second-string Celtics team, and even that took going into overtime. Got lucky that the game ended on a missed TO opportunity from the TO-hating interim coach and a classic Grant Williams fumble.

It’s tired to complain about, I know, but yeah, Bucks in black and Celtics in green on an unrelated blue court is next-level nonsensical. Rough look for a matchup of the two best teams in the league. Bucks nearly lost it for those karmic reasons, too.

Nah. Sad for the Nets to simply give up but neither of the talents they traded to the West have been in any ECF’s lately, so not much has really changed until proven otherwise.

As a Celtics fan, I've twice lived through LeBron single-handedly dragging a broken team back from a 3-2 deficit to beat my team in the ECF, so any suggestions that he's not a competitor or a winner don't hold up for me personally. The big missed opportunity with his legacy for me was that those Miami teams should probably have won all four Finals they were in. I view the second Cleveland stint less negatively because I don't think Jordan (or, for that matter, Kobe) ever had a foe as competitive as those Warriors teams (no offense to the Jazz). Generally I think the comparing across eras is folly for a number of reasons. Sure, Bill Russell was playing against plumbers and firemen, but he also did that in a time where there wasn't load management, travel was way more of a slog, and sports nutrition was a cigar and whiskey at your locker postgame.

Oh, don’t worry, the fake Real team using Barcelona’s color scheme has been a thorn in my side since day one. Par for the course for their branding though.

I actually liked the last two RSL kits. Not amazing or particularly memorable, but they do the job. The new one is nice because it just lets the color scheme sing, which in this case is a success.

Don't think we need to try too hard here, no shortage of painkiller abuse in the modern Astros front office either.

I don't totally mind the pink, it's a lot of colors going on but I appreciate the loudness. However, I hate hate hate the repeating embossed logo pattern -- a tacky and unattractive design motif that I was hoping Adidas had left behind.

Okay, guess I was wrong. Brooklyn is the new clearinghouse for solid role players, just as Bruce Ratner intended. Good of them to get some actual draft capital back this time, even though it's funny that their own picks will be great (but in Houston) and they're cutting their losses with these instead. Nice to see the new Suns owner guy displaying ambition here -- it's a title-quality roster but possibly with a really short window. CP3 already looks kind of washed and now their rotation's thinner, and while I'm not ready to bet against Durant, have to wonder when/if the age and injuries will finally start catching up to him. Or if his usual churlishness will be a good culture add to a locker room already with a few combustible personalities. But, those are worst-case scenarios. Can Booker be a guy who does his thing on a team that actually wins something worth a damn? Anyway, still can't believe that the team with I think the longest win streak in the league this year, that still had a very good shot at one or two series of home-court in the playoffs... just blew it all up in the middle of everything.

I would hesitate to draw too many conclusions -- it was maybe more true when the base of soccer fans in the States were overeducated Europhiles. The soccer fanbase is still maybe somewhat more to the left of sports fans at large, but that's because so many macho chuds will be reactionary anti-soccer forever. I'd also point out that USSF has married a lot of USMNT fan culture to college football, for lack of a better term, and yeah there have historically been issues of NYCFC neo-nazis and LAFC fans chanting the famous slur imported from Mexico. Anyway, I was talking about the Premier League specifically and its clubs' efforts to make qu/eer-outreach quite visible, and historically the sport's fanbase in England has never had the veneer of progressivism as in the States. Often quite the opposite, actually.

7/10 sounds right. I like that it reads as DCU still, but also you can’t miss the pink accents, so that’s a success at threading that needle (which isn’t easy). Would have preferred if they found a way to work in the sublimated graphic in a more subtle/abstract way than just the giant tree printed there.

Maybe not the NWSL, where both the women and men in positions of power seem prone to abuse, but yeah. Shades of that fundamentalist Christian who gave up her spot on the national soccer team rather than wear a jersey with rainbow numbers on the back. Clever way of letting the trash take itself out, although it's different in an environment where more than half of the labor is gay. I noticed two different Premier League teams with big team-branded pride flags in stadium corners last weekend -- a different approach, but, traditionally English soccer has not exactly been a bastion of progressive values and tolerance either. Maybe that's the way to go, even if a few Chads and Karens in the arena start emitting steam out their ears when their bratty children are exposed to rainbow signage.

It took some digesting but I think it'll be the way to do it, with how interleague opponents play just the one series and swap who's at home every year. Four series against your division opponents feels better than six (I could never watch another Red Sox/Orioles game in my life and feel fine) but isn't such a reduction that it wrecks divisional importance.

Self-quoting here but I should mention that I think Durant is now more likely to stay in Brooklyn... that the Nets picked a trade package that got them two starter-quality players in return suggests they're not entering a total teardown period. Probably better on defense now, though not totally enough to zero out the loss of Kyrie's offensive ability. Still, seems like they're interested in trying to continue to be competitive and find complementary pieces around KD -- not that I'd say that makes them a contender exactly, but they'll be the only middle-of-the-pack Eastern team that has Kevin Durant as an x-factor, so it's probably worth a shot (and still sells more tickets than another years-long rebuild).

Just gotta go back to 2009, year one of the Sounders' MLS operation. Unfortunately the look is dragged down by the horrid paneling aesthetic of its time. It's okay but Sounders blue and Sounders green are so tonally similar that simply reversing them doesn't make the kit look that different from afar... it would be a good choice when they're away to yellow teams but wouldn't be much of an improvement away to Portland. How to save it: I think if you go one shade lighter on the blue, and pair it with white shorts, that would be pretty suitable for Seattle and it would work in most any situation where their usual pea-soup green shirts wouldn't. But they seem pretty dedicated to away kits that are radically outside the usual team brand so not likely to happen.

Well, at least there aren't very many Brooklyn fans to be left disheartened by the recent events. The last time they were picking up the wreckage of a disastrous star team, they were rebuilding with Dinwiddie and LeVert and Allen, plus a decent coach in Kenny Atkinson, and they were a fun young team with strong culture and a path toward being decently competitive. Rather than augment that, they shredded it to pieces. Funny that Dinwiddie is back in the fold now to see if things go better this time around, and I think they might -- they traded Kyrie's finishing ability to level up their defense (and get assets for possibly another trade). But I can also see them handing over the keys to, like, Trae Young in three years or something if Durant bails and leaves them crud.

Marsch for USMNT would be insane. All the flaws of Berhalter around having a "system" but no plan B when things go sideways...except in Jesse's case the "system" is even less suited for the national team's player pool. Naturally the dinguses on Reddit are already chiming in with "anyone is better than GGG at this point". Not really understanding why you make moves for your manager only to can him 3 days after the transfer window closes. Feels like wavering for this long on which lane you want to pick never ends well for a club like Leeds.

Solid return for the Nets (given the circumstances). Dinwiddie returning is a cute callback to when it looked like Brooklyn had learned their lesson circa 2018. Not talented enough but at least the spirit is there and right; he’s at least good enough and their defense with Finney-Smith should keep them respectable as long as KD sticks around. It’s fitting that Kyrie ends up on the most culturally bankrupt franchise in the league. Shades of them trading for Rondo to pair with Dirk only for him to fight nonstop with Rick Carlisle for a half-season. (Also not sure a ball-dominant player who doesn’t defend is the right fix for this Mavs team, but…) I hope Luka gets fed up and bolts.