The NBA All-Star Game will take place in New Orleans on Feb. 19, and on Thursday the jerseys for the game were revealed. They’re perfectly fine!
A you can see, the West will wear charcoal and the East will wear red, and the jerseys are hard to have an opinion about? They’re not great. They’re not terrible. They’re OK. This isn’t the sort of take that will get us a show on ESPN, but I honestly do not feel strongly one way or the other about these jerseys. The one kid in the spread on NOLA.com is wearing a jersey built for a seven-foot person so that’s not helping the aesthetic of the look.
The NBA provided some background on the design, in case you are interested in the inspiration for basketball uniforms:
The carbon and red Western Conference, and light granite and blue Eastern Conference uniforms incorporate aged metal treatment across the jersey font outlines and adidas logo, as a nod to the French-inspired ironwork displayed throughout the city of New Orleans.
Western Conference uniforms are designed with gold accents and granite color blocking on the shoulder-collar and lower short leg, while Eastern Conference uniforms are finished with clean, white detailing. The NBA dribbler star badge is also displayed on the upper backs of the uniform with tonal adidas three stripes below each player’s name.
This is New Orleans’ third All-Star Game since 2008 and second since 2014. The game was originally scheduled to be played in Charlotte, but North Carolina enacted a bill that limits the protections of LGBT people, so commissioner Adam Silver moved the game to the Smoothie King Center. You could say it was a Smooth…ie movie by Silver.
Don’t say that though. It’s dumb.
