After the Indiana Pacers suddenly announced that they were “going gold” for the Eastern Conference Finals after wearing their City Editions at home for the entirety of both this season’s and last season’s playoffs, Indianapolis Star reporter Dustin Dopirak endeavored to find out why.
According to Dopirak, the NBA has “directed” (Dopirak’s word) the conference finalists to wear their “core uniforms” (again, Dopirak’s words) in the conference finals, and that the City Editions were “only allowed in the first two rounds.” (Looking at NBA LockerVision, the core is apparently the Icon, Association and Statement uniforms, which is to say everything but the City Edition.)
This came as somewhat of a shock to me, but the Pacers didn’t wear their City Editions at all in last year’s Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics, and the Celtics never wore their City Editions in last year’s playoffs at all. In the West, the Dallas Mavericks would wear their City Editions for Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals, while the Minnesota Timberwolves wore their Statement Editions in Game 5. The Mavericks would also wear their City Editions in Game 1 of the NBA Finals against the Celtics, and were scheduled to wear them for the ultimately unplayed Games 6 and 7.
I wonder why the NBA has chosen this season to impose this edict, assuming that the Pacers were allowed to wear their City Editions in the Conference Finals last year and chose not to. I also have to wonder how Nike feels about this — you would think they would want their City Editions to be on the biggest stage possible to maximize sales, considering they’re intentionally limited to a single season.
What are your thoughts on this? Dopirak’s report got a variety of reactions (which he commented on), so I’m curious what our readers have to say about this.
Since City jerseys are limited to a single season, I gotta assume Nike hasn’t manufactured any of the 2024-25 editions in (at least) months.
Just took a look at Fanatics (gross), and, yep, the only City Swingman listed for sale is the customized, made-to-order option. Nike’s prolly already on to the 2025-26 editions.
*the only City Swingman listed for sale for the Knicks
Cleveland won the championship wearing their alternate black jerseys. I don’t think it takes away from the game at all.
It did.
Agreed
It very much did. And those pictures will be around forever.
I thought those were a really dark blue
the sleeved jerseys (which is what they wore) were black
I wish they would ditch the city and statement jerseys altogether. It has gotten out of hand. I am all for this. They should also dictate teams wear white at home and color on the road.
Yeah, let’s get back to white at home, color on the road. I’m for every team having an alternate that provides more contrast on the road, for example, the Rockets wearing gray/black in Chicago to not blend in with red paint.
Color at home, white on the road. Why wouldn’t you wear your team colors in front of the home fans? Home fans wearing team colors in the stands while their team is wearing white, doesn’t make any sense.
Aesthetically it makes for a better product when the home team is in white and the road team is in dark; otherwise, it’s the same color matchups every game — and, yes, I’m deliberately ignoring the non-team color merch-dump uniforms in this old man op-ed.
When all sports started wearing throwback and alternate uniforms a few years ago I was all for it, but my opinion has changed somewhat. It’s gotten out of hand in the NBA, MLB and college with the NFL headed in that direction. I would like to see teams limited to 3-4 uniform versions and then done in moderation. As for the playoffs, teams should have to where their traditional look. Fans tuning in on TV need to recognize who’s playing, not have to figure out who is playing.
When a team wears color at home in basketball, it often does not create enough contrast with the court. A team wearing red that matches the red paint of the lane does not stand out well for instance as I saw occur with the Rockets before. The same for the Grizzlies with blue. The contrast makes visual identification easier in my opinion. There’s a reason camouflage tries to match the surroundings.
Because that would be boring for the home fans, every game would be a visitor in white versus the home team in team colors.
I love this. The alternative jerseys in all sports is too much. The Cavs jerseys were atrocious during their run in ‘16. I also hated the Cubs & Indians WS uniform choices. Maybe I’m just too old fashioned, but I like the standard home and away unis.
> “I also have to wonder how Nike feels about this ”
Knowing them, they’d probably want to create totally new Conference Finals cash grab uniforms for the teams to wear.
Of course. If the NBA went for it, there would be conf finals uniforms and finals uniforms!
City Connects???
More like City REJECTS, amirite?
Hi-yoooooooo!
I have preached it on and on and on again. I loved it when the home team wore white so that (most times) the away teams colors contrasted with the court design colors. My biggest peeve is Boston wearing green at home. Those uniforms just blend in with the court. I wouldn’t mind for the NFL to designate the “home” team to wearing white. Some teams have horrible lighting conditions and their “home” uniforms look great in natural sunlight. The Saints being one of them.
Basketball is terrible. With that said, 95% of NBA uniforms are horrendous. Just need a white, color, and color alt. And no stupid names for these uniform sets. White, color, alt. Keep it simple. And all courts the same with baseboards different if teams want to “change it up”.
Watching game 7 of Leafs/Panthers, it’s amazing how superior the NHL playoffs are.
what are you talking about? the pacers have not worn their editions for “the entirety of this year’s playoffs”?? They wore their yellows unis against the Bucks and in like 3 games against the Cavaliers. You not been paying attention???
While I generally don’t like to see leagues restrict or mandate what teams can or can’t wear, I do like the idea of teams leaning on their core classic uniforms during the playoffs.
Wear the goofy, gimmicky stuff during some meaningless games during the doldrums of the long regular season. Fine. Get into the playoffs and feature the real uniforms, the actual team colors, and the core iconography that links past, present, and future.
It is a desperate attention grab at trying to look serious and professional as a league after dumping so many ugly uniforms on the market all season long. You are not going to wear THAT outfit to your sister’s wedding, young man!
My personal feeling is that teams should only wear their primary uniforms [Home/Away (Association/Icon)] in the playoffs. That’s just my personal taste, but it also helps from a branding perspective to make teams easily identifiable to the biggest audiences in the biggest games
Lifelong Pacers fan here. I don’t like their city edition uniform and I love both the Pacers and Knicks “standard” uniforms, so I’m happy about this news.
Knicks city edition is a riff on their late-90s set, so it would have been kinda cool to see the Knicks in their city edition vs the pacers gold.
The advantage of teams wearing white at home is the same as why the Cowboys elected to do it years ago. Let the fans at the home game see the many other teams colors.
During the regular season sometimes it’s hard to tell who is even playing because of the off the wall uniforms and even the court switched up. I’m 100% for the classic white at home and color on the road. During the regular season it’s ok to have few games with throwbacks featured for each team and a few games for alt uniforms. Other than that let’s get back to the basics. If the Celtics are at the Lakers we should see LA in gold and Boston in green.
I am all for this. I’d like to get back to basics with the NBA because it just feels like the alternate jersey blitz is out of control. White home. Dark jersey on the road. A third jersey that’s either an alternate or throwback. Done. If I’m watching the Lakers and Celtics I expect to see Boston in their classic whites at LA in their purple. Flip it to yellow if LA is at home and green if the Celts are on the road.
I would like to see the NBA not allow city uniforms being worn in the postseason. Teams have an icon, association, and statement uniform that is in the team’s colors. Time to get true identity back in the postseason. I have no issue with teams wearing dark uniforms at home, I’ve gotten used to it. But, the team’s colors should be featured in postseason.
I remember golden State wearing their best city jersey in the playoffs in 2022 but ditching them for the finals which I thought was odd. Was surprised to see the Mavs wear theirs in the finals last year. Mainly because they were hideous
Wish this had been the rule when the Bucks won the championship a few years ago. Love that they won the title. Hate that they did it wearing awful BFBS at home.