Nike, the world’s leading sports apparel giant, finally teamed up with the NBA this season to become the league’s official uniform provider, and the Oregon-based company is doing all sorts of neat things with special edition jerseys that will debut throughout the year.
But the quality of the product was called into question almost immediately when LeBron James’ jersey tore apart surprisingly easily on opening night when he got tangled up with Jaylen Brown. The company launched an internal investigation after the incident, and all was quiet on that front until Draymond Green’s uniform suffered a similar fate last week during his dust-up with Bradley Beal.
On Friday night, Ben Simmons became the latest player to see his jersey practically disintegrate right before his eyes.
Of course, it bears mentioning that Lance Stephenson was involved, but it underscored a troubling trend with Nike’s product, which apparently rips to shreds like it’s made of paper. A different angle appears to show that Stephenson didn’t even really pull that hard on it.
It remains to be seen just how many times this will have to happen before Nike does something more proactive about it. Nothing short of a massive recall will likely solve this problem for Nike and the players they’re tasked with outfitting.
