Portland’s “Rip City” jersey.
The Pistons’ cool “Motor City” jerseys. A number of teams have alternate “heritage” jerseys.
Next season those will all be sleeved jerseys, reports Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com.For the 2014-15 season, the heritage jerseys of NBA teams will be converted to sleeved jerseys, a league source informed CSNNW.com. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the plan being subject to change leading up to next season, but it’s “highly unlikely,” the source explained….
There’s reluctance by some teams to switch up their look, we’re told. However, this is something the league wants to occur and there’s more teams in favor of the change than ones that are not, another source said.If you hate the sleeved jerseys… sorry. The league likes them and they are not going away.
Announcement: Pro Basketball Talk’s partner FanDuel is hosting a one-day $85,000 Fantasy Basketball league for Wednesdaynight’s games. It’s $25 to join and first prize is $9,000. Starts at 6pm on Wednesday. Here’s the FanDuel link.
I’ll give you two reasons they are sticking around. First, the league thinks they can sell more jerseys because there are people that wouldn’t buy (and most shouldn’t wear) a tank top but they would buy a sleeved jersey. Early sales of the sleeves are pretty good, according to reports. Second, when advertising comes to NBA jerseys (and it will) this is more real estate for ads that don’t become too obtrusive.
This trend is going to be around for a few years, and at least in a small Christmas Day sample size the sleeves didn’t seem to impact shooting.
