The Orlando Magic today announced that they’re adding a throwback uniform to their wardrobe as part of their 35th-season celebration. The design, which is shown above, turns back to the clock to the team’s 1998-2003 era.
Here are some additional photos:
The uniform comes with a matching throwback court design:
The Magic will wear this uniform for their first game of the season, on Oct. 25, and then for nine additional games. The full throwback schedule can be found here.
These are great to see. For a team with the name Magic, they’ve had such a bland identity for years.
The collar overlap direction doesn’t seem to be universal. Mistake of intentional?
The best thing in the Magic’s arsenal is a striking shade of blue.
No green emoji blocking the ad?
The Orlando Magic and the Charlotte Hornets are the epitome of tripping over their own feet, design wise. They hit the scene with basically perfect jerseys. Yes they were jerseys that were very much “of the time”, but at the same time instant classics. Lately they just can’t help themselves but to try to make little changes and improvements and they just keep getting farther and farther from greatness. I know this isn’t the inaugural uni for the Magic, but it espouses much of the same design language as the original and it belongs in any discussion of their “classic look”. In fact, while I prefer the original pinstripes better, this uni is when they added the superior “flying magic ball” logo to their repertoire, which makes it a draw for me. But the chisel-tip sharpie script with the star A, the pinstripes or cascading stars coupled with the classic striped sleeve trim, and the magic ball logo are it for me. None of this orange, grey, Dallas mavericks font, wishbone collar, flares pinstripes nonsense. Add to all this the fact that they just aren’t a good enough team to futz around as much as they do and accidentally turn a dud uni into a classic via on-court success.
Second-best design in team history, after the blue alts from the early 90’s. So much better than anything that came later, including the late T-Mac clunkers and Dwight-era blah-ness. They should be far more whimsical and loose than the rigid mess they have now.