The NBA City Edition leaks are coming at such a velocity now that you could almost set up a separate website devoted to them. The latest one, shown above, is for the Kings, and it’s a beauty — the rare City design that doesn’t feel like product for product’s sake (although I do wish there were a bit more space between the “K” and the maker’s mark).
The design is clearly a shout-out to the franchise’s prior incarnation as the Cincinnati Royals, whose jerseys had a similar design from 1968 through 1971:
The retro/historic aspect of the design is presumably part of the Kings’ centennial program. As I recently reported, they have a sensational 100th-anniversary logo, and they also have new primary uniforms for this seaosn.
Will they pair the uniform with similarly retro warm-up gear? Here’s what the Royals wore back in the day:
Now that would be magnificent!
(My thanks to Dax Littleton for letting me know about this leak.)
As a Kings fan, I like them. I’m a big fan of anything that lessens the purple.
The Nike Kings…cool.
For real, that swoosh is just sitting up there like a crown. A crown right there, by the way, would have been a nice touch. Too bad there was only room for the swoosh.
The least awful use of another awful Nike font.
Actually, this font predates Nike’s NBA contract by one year.
*the least awful use of this awful kings font*
There is something going on in the side panels that might be disturbing but I like all those tiny crowns above the tag. The font is good for vertical stacking like they did here. All in all a nice jersey, but I wonder about the shorts. And that side panelling. That vintage warmup shirt is really good.
I zoomed in on the photo after I read your comment, and I think you’re right. The side panels appear to be stripes, not panels. The 68-71 jerseys have white-blue-white stripes that connect with the white-blue-white stripes on the shorts. These ones appear to have white-blue-grey-blue-white stripes.
I don’t really follow basketball, but I know that the Kings started out as the Rochester (NY) Royals. Have they ever done a throwback to pay tribute to their original home?
Yes, they’ve worn both home and road Rochester unis over the last decade or so.
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Aside from the obvious stains (the maker’s mark and ad patch), I like it!
I don’t like these. Why are the Kings still calling back to a prior color scheme while they’re pushing black and purple also? This means 3 new unis for the team this season.