By Matthew Lippe
The new all-star game uniforms for this year have been leaked! Today I will do a quick break down of the uniforms and what I would like to see in the future.
To begin, I think the all-star game is great opportunity for sports leagues to take a risk in design. See what sticks, see what doesn’t. That is why the past few years, I have been unimpressed with the NBA all-star uniforms, because they have shown no creativity, no effort. They have been playing it safe. That is why when I saw this years uniforms, the first thing that hit me was that they have a colorful design.
My immediate thoughts are the pinstripes. They seem to call back to the 90s pinstripes jerseys the Chicago Bulls wore. Any jersey with pinstripes is usually good in my book, so that was a nice touch.
The shorts also have an interesting design. It reminds me of the Shaq era Orlando Magic shorts, with the big star on the side of the shorts. So, in my opinion, I like the “burst” design on these shorts, they make them pop.
I liked these two aspects of the uniforms and definitely think it is a big improvement over past few years. However, I think there is a lot room for improvement. First, I think one team’s jerseys needs to be white. In my opinion, a color on color match up is tough to pull off well. Maybe it will look good in the game, but for now I wish one uniform was in white.
Also, the uniforms don’t seem to have a big tie to Chicago. My two favorite all-star game jerseys (1995 and 1996) both have ties to their respective cities (San Antonio and Phoenix). I think this is an aspect that has been missed out on. When a city hosts the All-Star game, it is a big event, so why no make the uniforms something the city can hang their hat on? It would have been cool if the uniforms had used the colors from the Chicago flag. Imagine, the East plays in the light blue uniforms and the West plays in white, each uniform with accents of the red. Now THAT would be a uniform match up! And they could do some cool designs, like incorporating the Willis Tour.
Personally, I don’t think these uniforms are bad by any means, but I still think they can be improved. However, it is a good sign to see that the NBA is willing to go with more colorful designs as a warm reception to these jerseys could show the NBA that more bold jersey designs will be welcomed by the NBA community.