You will recall a bit over a month ago, I ran two articles from the guys at ProLine who developed what they’re calling the NBA “Refresh Series,” which is “a conceptual journey through a total transformation of the NBA uniform landscape… For this series, we’re embracing “maximalism” with bold, audacious designs and a spectrum of vivid colors, reimagining each team’s visual identity — even if only through minimal tweaks to already great uniform sets. Central to this evolution is the introduction of a new ‘System of Dress.’ This innovative approach ensures a dynamic aesthetic landscape, allowing classic fan favorite designs to reemerge with freshness alongside core styles. While iconic teams like the Lakers and Celtics might seem beyond the need for dramatic changes, we’ve playfully explored updates for them too, underscoring our commitment to refreshing every team in some manner.”
You can check out the concepts for the Western Conference here and the Eastern Conference here.
In this third part of the series, ProLine is showing a few ideas for Champions and Christmas Editions, which they may revisit in a future series for the entire league. They add, “We hope you enjoy viewing this series as much as we enjoyed creating it. And remember (before you react too strongly) — this is just for fun.”
Today we’ll look at a couple of the Champions and Christmas Editions.
Christmas and Champions Editions
by ProLine Mockups
For this component of the “New System of Dress” for the NBA we thought it would be fun to do some more creative Christmas Editions and add a Champions Edition. We didn’t do a design for every team, but just put together a few festive ideas for Christmas along with incorporating a trophy/gold element to Champions Edition uniforms for Denver and Boston, as examples of what could possibly be done.
As a reminder for the overall project:
UNDER OUR NEW PROPOSED “SYSTEM OF DRESS” EACH TEAM WOULD HAVE THE FOLLOWING:
Core Uniforms – Light and Dark: These would be the two main uniforms for each team; minimum 5 season duration once introduced
Alternate Uniform: This would replace the current “Statement Edition” and would continue to use Jordan branding; minimum 3 season duration once introduced
Champions Uniform: Each season’s NBA Champion would receive a “Champions Edition” uniform to be worn during the following season
Classic Earned Uniform: Playoff teams would earn a “Classic Earned Edition” with a 1 season duration, allowing them to bring back a Core, Alternate or Champions uniform that is no longer in rotation; a specific design can only be used once every 5 seasons*
Christmas Uniform: Each team playing on Christmas day would have a “Christmas Edition” uniform; each design would be used twice with a rotating schedule that guaranteed every team plays on Christmas at least once every 3 seasons so that every team gets a Christmas uniform for fans to enjoy
*Core/Alternate/Champions Uniforms would become eligible to be used as a “Classic Earned Edition” after 5 years out of rotation
Champions Editions
Celtics
Playing up the idea of incorporating the gold of the Larry O’Brien trophy, which would work perfectly with the Celtics. A metallic, gold material against their classic green would really pop.
Nuggets
The most recent NBA champs and a team whose name refers directly to gold mining, we created a fresh and vibrant look for the Nuggets to commemorate their first title.
Christmas Editions
Lakers
A festive play on pastels, patterns and script. This design says Lakers and Christmas without being too heavy-handed.
Mavericks
Nothing says Christmas like red and green, so we applied the traditional Christmas colors to our Mavs refresh design. The “JumpSanta” logo really pops on this one (look closely).
Suns
A more obvious Christmas design, we turned our Suns refresh uniform into a full-blown Santa suit. Our favorite part is the belt buckle.
Warriors
This design ties together themes of ugly sweater patterns (made of cable cars, sleighs and pine trees) with icy-white trim and ornamental gold elements. The ice-blue base pairs with the gold to maintain a palette that still fits with the Warriors.
Templates available at ProLineMockups.com
Cool ideas! I really like the pastel purple base for the Lakers! Never thought of it before, but I wish they had done that years ago instead of selling out with white for a new light jersey!
Absolutely love the Mavs in red and green. If the Bucks won’t embrace these lovely colors any more, I think Dallas should.
I still cannot get over that ugly rounded LA monogram they use for their Lakers mock-ups. The designs are mostly OK, but not wow. And no logo on the Nuggets shorts (I mean, even on the waistband it would have been fine) is an omission or this uniform would have been wow.
The Celtics & Nuggets are fantastic! The gold really works for both of them as it is aligns with the team identities.
Also the most probable finals matchup this year, imagine we could’ve seen these gold accented beauties go head to head in June!
Love the Celts and the Suns unis. The Warriors shorts look like swim trunks.