The Orlando Magic joined most of their NBA bretheren in releasing their new 2024-25 City Edition uniform this past Thursday. As has been the case with a number of teams unveiling CEs this year, it’s part of a two-year story arc. In 2023-24, the team sported a blue City Edition, while this season’s edition has replaced the blue elements with white.
The Magic were one a just a few teams who did not produce a hype video for the new uniform, and that’s fine. We can work without that. We’ll look at the new CEs now.
The first thing you may notice about the uniform is that while it’s white, it has a bit of an off-white appearance. You can see that it has a pinstripe design throughout, but there’s an additional design element in play here. There is a very subtle “basketball net” pattern in addition to the pinstriping.
Unless you’re viewing the uniform up close, that netting pattern isn’t really visible (although the NBA’s storytelling mockup exaggerates this to the point where the pattern is highly noticeable, and completely out of proportion):
At least that’s how *I* interpreted the uniform. The team has a different take:
The uniform continues to honor the past with the star featured inside the Magic wordmark front and center across the chest. The iconic retro star in place of the “A” in Magic is a nod to the team’s uniform roots. The style features a new base color of platinum, with a background pattern evoking a suit of armor to display strength and fortitude. The armor is representative of the Magic players battling on the court, fighting to protect its kingdom along with the pride and resiliency of the city of Orlando and its fans continuing the story of a Kingdom on the Rise.
Alrighty then. It’s not a basketball net, it’s supposedly evoking medieval chainmail. I was all ready to love the subtle netting pattern until I read this description. Now I kinda hate it.
The word salad gets even better: “In continuing to recognize and honor the Orlando Magic and the city of Orlando as a unique kingdom on the rise, the latest iteration of the Magic’s Nike NBA City Edition uniform … Utiliz(es) the gothic font in “Magic” on the front of the uniform is a nod to not only the city but its fans as well, representative of the team battling for its beloved “sixth man” and the city they represent with pride. The themes of this year’s City Edition design represent pride in the city and its fans, the fight and fortitude of the players, and resiliency as the team continues to rise.”
I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
The wordmark and number, as noted above, are holdovers from the previous blue/black CE. Aside from the aforementioned pinstripe/chainmail, the uni features a double side stripe that kinda/sorta resembles a lightning bolt pattern on the jersey. The stripes continue down onto the shorts, where the double stripe takes a “U” curve on front and back, with the base creating a dark section having an outlined star on either side of the pants. However, the shorts have a solid “platinum” waistband, which effectively breaks up the double stripe pattern between jersey and shorts.
The rear of the jersey has player NOB in dark lettering in a radial arch, with the uniform number below that in the same style as on the front.
The Magic will debut the new CE on November 23rd against the Detroit Pistons. In total, Orlando will sport the look for 14 home games during the 2024-25 season.
While obviously all the CE uniforms are unnecessary, some are better than others. Until I read the team’s description, I liked it a lot more than I do now. I still think the chainmail/netting is a cool feature, although I’d prefer they use either pinstripes or that pattern, not both. I also like the double stripe that’s present on the neck and shoulders and continues down the sides, but the “lightning” zig-zag feels unnecessary. While it’s certainly not the worst CE uniform for this season, the designers were, IMO, a bit too clever by half. If they dropped the pinstripes and made the side stripes straight, I’d like this one a lot more.
Your thoughts?
Maybe it’s my monitor, but the blue definitely looks black. Too dark for the Magic, if they’re not trying to reference other colors in the storytelling.
The striping down the side is so bad. Even in the effing promo photos, they can’t get them to line up.
This one didn’t register with me at the time of the leaks, but it’s immediately one of my favorites because it both looks great and, wonder of all wonders, actually looks like an Orlando Magic jersey. My dislikes are the sponsor patch (obviously) and the side striping, which will stop lining up approximately five seconds into the actual games. But overall I’m a big fan.
I guess if there ever was a team/uni-ad combo that makes sense and would be ok, Orlando and Disney would be it? The team name is basically an ad for Disney World and the “Magic” Kingdom?
This is good and falls into the category of uni auditioning to be full time looks
I think the net pattern and the stripes work together better than just the net pattern. remember the old hawks jerseys from 2016… they looked terrible (for many reasons). the pinstripes break it up a bit.
I can imagine after hashing through all the details of the uniform and then getting blasted by that massive sentence – which you must’ve tossed some unnecessary lettuce aside to create that 74-word salad – that something might get overlooked.
I refer to the vertically arched “ORL*NDO” on the buckle, which is a transposition from last year’s CE nameplate. I think it’s a nice touch – that is, until it disappears under the jersey’s tails.
I don’t hate this one but I could do without the insipid backstory.
The “Magic Kingdom” is not on the rise. I think a certain mouse already brought that kingdom to empire status.