Lakers in green

[BallWonk]

I'm just gonna say this one more time...

Don't ever rely on old faded photographs as definitive proof of a particular color.

Too true. However, it must also be said: Don't ever rely on stated style guides as definitive proof of a particular color. There is no single source that can provide a definitive answer to the question, "What color was a team's uniform in that year?" since photos are iffy, artifacts fade, and official style guidelines are frequently little more than suggestions due either to differences between print and fabric pigments or to manufacturer practices.

This thread is a great example: Just because some photos, in all cases here at least second-generation reproductions, seen online, have a greenish hue, it is not proven that the Lakers wore some shade of green in 1952. But similarly, just because the team listed light blue on an official style sheet, it also is not proven that the Lakers did not actually wear greenish-hued uniforms in 1952.

Unless someone can refer to a physical artifact that either has not faded much or that can be matched with another physical example whose original color is not in doubt, I'm going to go with the working hypothesis that the Lakers wore a highly saturated shade of medium blue for at least one season. I've seen fabric that looks like a rich true blue in sunlight but takes on a teal-greenish tint in some darker artificial lighting situations. Combine that slight apparent color-shift with the vagaries of photographic recording and reproduction, and then combine that with secondary reproduction and final display on video screens of varying type and quality, and it wouldn't be hard for a very slightly teal-ish fabric in 1952 to become a forest-green uniform in 2009.

Pure hypothesis, however. The incidence of apparently green Lakers uniforms could almost equally well be explained by bad photographic recording and reproduction in the first instance with no basis in the apparent hue of the actual uniform.

[pjinners]

I don't know about the colours, but there sure is too much "Mikan crotch" for my liking in that Wikipedia picture.

YIKES!

Maybe those super-long modern shorts aren't so bad after all.

[B-Rich]

Just for grins and giggles, I worked on the original with color adjustment. I did the WHOLE photo, not just the uni. The change was very slight, in terms of hue/saturation (green/red). Here they are compared side by side:

Although the original photo looks very "clear" and "correct", I can see that fading / scanning / processing could lead to the uniform turning green, and think it is likely that the uniform at the time the picture was taken WAS a shade of blue.

Again, the only way to find out for sure would be to contact someone (or several people) associated with the Lakers at that time, or fans who actually saw them at that time. And like the late, great George Mikan, many of them have passed on......

[FirearmofMutiny]

Just for grins and giggles, I worked on the original with color adjustment. I did the WHOLE photo, not just the uni. The change was very slight, in terms of hue/saturation (green/red). Here they are compared side by side:

Although the original photo looks very "clear" and "correct", I can see that fading / scanning / processing could lead to the uniform turning green, and think it is likely that the uniform at the time the picture was taken WAS a shade of blue.

Again, the only way to find out for sure would be to contact someone (or several people) associated with the Lakers at that time, or fans who actually saw them at that time. And like the late, great George Mikan, many of them have passed on......

You could always get their old GM, Sid Hartman. He's 90 and still doing his column for the Star Tribune!