Nike took over the NBA’s apparel production from adidas in the lead up to the 2017 season. While the swoosh has done a whole lot of good stuff in that time, there has been one area in which the three stripes separated themselves: Every year on Christmas Day, NBA teams would take the floor wearing some type of uniform that was unique to that day.
There’s an obvious economic argument against Christmas unis — it might not make sense to make a jersey a team wears one time a year and does not wear on any other day — but there still was something really cool about knowing that when a team took the floor on Dec. 25, they would rock threads that we’d never see again. For LeBron James, who knows a thing or two about playing marquee games on Christmas Day, that’s a tradition he’d love to see come back.
In the final hours of Christmas Eve, James took to Twitter and called on Nike to go back down the path that was forged when adidas was making the league’s uniforms. In fact, he went as far as to say that bringing back Christmas jerseys is a must.
MAN i wish I walked into the locker room tomorrow and we had Christmas Day uniforms! It’s a MUST we bring those back @Nike @nikebasketball I’ve been seeing those Lakers 🧊 unis over the airways. Sheesh!!!! 😱
— LeBron James (@KingJames) December 25, 2019
James has a lifetime deal with Nike, so it does carry a bit more weight when he says he wants the company to do something than it does with most other people. Odds are that we won’t get a Christmas miracle and see anything on the 25th this year, but maybe James being this passionate about seeing these threads again could mean that something ends up being in the cards when the NBA’s marquee regular season day tips off on Dec. 25, 2021.
