2021-22 NBA Changes

[pepis21]

13 hours ago, IceCap said:

Jazz- More of Nike "throwing back" to concepts that are less than a decade old, which they created. Cool. Why not the classic jazz note look in the 90s colours? This is just...I feel nothing. And I consider the Jazz my "second team."

 

You're considering Jazz as your second team and don't know they retains City from last season?

 

13 hours ago, IceCap said:

Suns- I have no idea what's different about this compared to last year's alternates. Which I will blame for their failure to win the championship.

 

Nothing except diamond swoosh and NBA logo.

[SSmith48]

13 hours ago, IceCap said:

I liked a lot of these. I hated a lot of these. Again, Nike's insistence on a slew of new uniforms for most teams per year is burning through viable concepts. They need to stop, but they won't.

This. This is the issue I wish Nike would get. "City" editions are only great so long as you have new ideas to continue making them. It's painfully obvious only 4-5 years in that they are already running out of ideas, Mixtape editions or not. Kudos for Utah keeping their original set around for as long as it did.

[PrimalCookie]

Re: the Magic, I absolutely LOVE it. It pays tribute to every design in team history, even the super bland 04-07 look (the shoulder stripes). The original wordmark coming back is always a win. “Why not us? Why not now?” in the pinstripes is one of those things that no one will ever see from more than a foot away, but it’s an amazing detail. The original comet ball streaking down the side panels with the sublimated stars from the early 2000s jerseys in there is also brilliant. Instant buy for me, although it’s be even more of an instant buy if it had blue instead of orange.

 

….that doesn’t make sense. But you know what I mean.

[floydnimrod]

To me uniforms are read "from the bottom up." Stripes can start at the shorts and end at the waist (Celtics, Lakers old looks, etc.) but when there are stripes on the jersey itself that don't carry down to the shorts  - in this case the sets released for the Bulls and Spurs - it looks dumb as hell. Ruins an otherwise OK look.

 

It reminds me of the old Grizzlies set that had stripes on both sides of the jersey but only stripes on one side of the shorts. It looks really, really stupid.

[Digby]

7 hours ago, Jay_Mellowed said:

Boston: The illegibility of the wordmark and numerals from afar hurt this look. Besides, I wish they'd dabble a bit more into featuring gold into some of their one-off sets, reminiscent of their former St. Patrick's Day set.

 

This is what I would've gone for as well, although I was also worried they'd try to slip black or grey or bright yellow in there if that was the case. So kind of a situation to be happy with the safer option, I guess. I'm confused as to why this Celtics uniform has the block nameplate thing when the City jersey from a couple years ago based off the classic warmups...didn't?

[Froob]

1 hour ago, Magic Dynasty said:

Re: the Magic, I absolutely LOVE it. It pays tribute to every design in team history, even the super bland 04-07 look (the shoulder stripes). The original wordmark coming back is always a win. “Why not us? Why not now?” in the pinstripes is one of those things that no one will ever see from more than a foot away, but it’s an amazing detail. The original comet ball streaking down the side panels with the sublimated stars from the early 2000s jerseys in there is also brilliant. Instant buy for me, although it’s be even more of an instant buy if it had blue instead of orange.

 

….that doesn’t make sense. But you know what I mean.

Unrelated but was in Orlando for my honeymoon and stopped by to see the Revs while they were in town, what an environment at Exploria Stadium! You guys have great fans!

[CitizenTino]

“Rip City” is fine. Why the Blazers keep putting out uniforms where it is spelled out “ripcity” with no space, I will never understand. “ripcity” looks like a failed late-90s tech startup that went under when the dot-com bubble burst.

[gosioux76]

3 minutes ago, CitizenTino said:

“Rip City” is fine. Why the Blazers keep putting out uniforms where it is spelled out “ripcity” with no space, I will never understand. “ripcity” looks like a failed late-90s tech startup that went under when the dot-com bubble burst.

That's a great point, actually.  I'd never really thought about the lack of separation in the word on the jerseys, but now I can't unsee it. I'm guessing it was just a design choice, and that making it one word looked better than two small words. But you're right; it doesn't make much sense. 

 

I also don't get why Rip City is getting singled out in this thread. Really, all nicknames are silly, especially if you're not part of the community that adheres to it. I don't see how Rip City is any worse than "Buzz City," "Windy City," "Queen City" or even "the Big Apple." Yet I wouldn't call any of them stupid, because it's an unnecessary insult to the people who do happen to care about it. 

 

And the fact that they're on the front of jerseys is just one of at least a dozen faults I have with the NBA system of alternate uniforms, and I'm not even sure it's the worst of them. 

[tBBP]

For those who have yet to see the Wolves' alternates, here are some screenplays. The blue pattern-gradient fades to the back in a pretty cool way, though I've yet to see clear shots of the back of this alternate...

 

 

Now, I can do without the unnecessary marketingNikespeak...they could've just said it was patterned from wolf hair and I would have been cool with it.  That's the problem with "trying to be too clever".  

 

Speaking of which, check out this next image...and I want one of y'all to point out the irony in this, considering the purpose of the infographic...

 

 

Anyway, moving on...

 

18 hours ago, TheRealPepman said:

Is it me or the Hornets forgot that the "Charlotte" script on the City jersey is also inspired by the surname script on their classic warm-up  jacket?

 

 

 

I don't know about y'all, but I miss the days when teams had unique warm-ups...particularly some of the more quirky details like the script surnames on the Hornets' warm-ups above, or the whole first-name-on-front and last-name-on-back thing the Pistons used to do...

 

 

 

 

 

 

8 hours ago, SSmith48 said:

This. This is the issue I wish Nike would get. "City" editions are only great so long as you have new ideas to continue making them. It's painfully obvious only 4-5 years in that they are already running out of ideas, Mixtape editions or not. Kudos for Utah keeping their original set around for as long as it did.

 

I know I've been harping on this for a minute now, but I'm right there with you. This again is the problem with dang-near-idolizing your "innovation culture"...there comes a point when the barrel runs dry, yet you've committed yourself to still being "forward-thinking" and "cutting edge"--and it results in stuff like this.  It happened with the whole Pro Combat phase in CFB (yeah when's the last time you heard those two words? You see my point), not to mention some of the wilder alternates and even Oregon's own uniforms tamed down after a while, and it's going on now with the NBA. 

[upperV03]

1 hour ago, Digby said:

 

This is what I would've gone for as well, although I was also worried they'd try to slip black or grey or bright yellow in there if that was the case. So kind of a situation to be happy with the safer option, I guess. I'm confused as to why this Celtics uniform has the block nameplate thing when the City jersey from a couple years ago based off the classic warmups...didn't?

There actually is grey in the panels on the shorts:

[Digby]

Dammit. Well, could’ve been worse.

[OnWis97]

38 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

That's a great point, actually.  I'd never really thought about the lack of separation in the word on the jerseys, but now I can't unsee it. I'm guessing it was just a design choice, and that making it one word looked better than two small words. But you're right; it doesn't make much sense. 

 

I also don't get why Rip City is getting singled out in this thread. Really, all nicknames are silly, especially if you're not part of the community that adheres to it. I don't see how Rip City is any worse than "Buzz City," "Windy City," "Queen City" or even "the Big Apple." Yet I wouldn't call any of them stupid, because it's an unnecessary insult to the people who do happen to care about it. 

 

And the fact that they're on the front of jerseys is just one of at least a dozen faults I have with the NBA system of alternate uniforms, and I'm not even sure it's the worst of them. 

I think it's getting singled out because nobody came to defend the others. I kinda started it by putting it on equal level with Sactown and the Valley.

 

In terms of fans using the terms, I will concede that Sactown is ten times lamer than Rip City. (Then again, I doubt anyone says "Sactown"). So to the point of that poster (I'm not trying to leave their name out; I just don't remember and am too lazy to go back), the Rip City thing is not nearly as generic/contrived as a lot of these other ones. Perhaps "Sactown" is a function of what people have been pointing out; that adding multiple uniforms every year is going to burn through all good ideas in a hurry.

 

My point about Rip City was intended to be "keep it off the jersey" as opposed to "don't say it."  That said, I did go and find the story and it certainly didn't help me appreciate it a lot more. One guy hit a long shot in a game vs. the Lakers, prompting an announcer to yell "rip city" in a game that the team eventually lost by like 20 points.  But to the poster's point, it did come about organically as opposed to contrived and it's not my place to ay that it's wrong.

 

Buzz City has been on jerseys and that's either just as bad or even worse. Has "Windy City" been used on one of these jerseys? I know the really famous names like Big Apple, Beantown, etc. are often off-putting to locals.

[OnWis97]

So, as some people have pointed out, they're running out of good ideas and for a lot of these teams are resorting to bad ideas.

 

A couple questions about the Nike "blur the lines between NBA team identities" program:

1. Where does it go from here?

2. Is it successful?

 

It feels like the only possible continuations of this are every team eventually using just about every color imaginable, the entire Essene of the jerseys being changed (e.g., giant logos on the front, or team names on the back and player names on the front), recycling old ones every few years, or incredibly subtle changes.

 

As to whether it's been and will be successful, I'm curious. Obviously if this leads to big merchandise sales, it's successful and it's not going anywhere.  If I go out and buy Prince-themed Timberwolves gear, am I really buying something extra or am I just buying it in lieu of more basic gear? Are a lot of people really going to buy their team's one-year look every year?  I'd guess there's a sales benefit over each team just having one identity, so that probably answers my question. The counterpoint could be the loss of identity...or the blurring. Already, with no white at home default and teams regularly wearing colors that are very different from their official schemes, it's jarring to turn on a game that looks like Nuggets/Suns and turns out to be Magic/Hawks (fake example). I know the scorebugs on TV really prevent long-term confusion so I suppose it becomes a minor annoyance that doesn't directly, or even indirectly, lead to reduced revenue.  (I guess I've answered my own question)

[ltjets21]

I feel like these sets every team moved towards just mashing up generations which is an interesting concept. Outside of the sixers nothing really reflected anything in the city like they had in the past. Also surprised to see the Lakers ditch the legacy uniforms as they still had not made a jersey for Jerry West, Kareem, George Mikan, or James Worthy.

[Discogod]

8 minutes ago, ltjets21 said:

I feel like these sets every team moved towards just mashing up generations which is an interesting concept. Outside of the sixers nothing really reflected anything in the city like they had in the past. Also surprised to see the Lakers ditch the legacy uniforms as they still had not made a jersey for Jerry West, Kareem, George Mikan, or James Worthy.

 

You realise that's the whole point? It's the NBA's 75th* anniversary, so this years' City unis are mashups of previous sets.

 

 

 

 

 

*actually 72nd, but that's a whole other topic.

[tBBP]

2 hours ago, OnWis97 said:

A couple questions about the Nike "blur the lines between NBA team identities" program:

1. Where does it go from here?

2. Is it successful?

 

1.) 'Tis the big question, ain't it? This could be a tide-over until the think-tank recharges its creative innovation juices, or...I don't know.

 

As for #2, it'll be wildly successful if enough people go out and blow their wads on the stuff, which I'm sure enough people will.  (By the way, is it any coincidence the stuff is releases this close to both Black Friday and Christmas, the  biggest wad-blowing event of the year?) 

[floydnimrod]

Would have loved if the Raptors jersey had an infinite regression Raptor wearing the Raptor jersey. Real big miss.

[Berlin Wall]

Wow, the Grizzlies could have a great colour scheme. They don't use teal on the uniforms somehow.

 

[pepis21]

9 hours ago, upperV03 said:

There actually is grey in the panels on the shorts:

According to lockervision grey is a nod to smoke that came from cigaro smoked by Red Auerbach and I'm not joking they even called that cigar smoke not gray.

Btw I'm curious to see if Vistaprint patch will be like this (same was on classic photo from release day) or same like on classic. I'd bet for 2nd option even if Lockervision and media photos shows different.

[MilSox]

Dammit Bucks. Why couldn't we just get some version of the 1980s double green like everyone wants?