Cleveland Cavaliers Daily Links for Oct. 25: Nike is just bad at this

Some thoughts on jerseys.

By Chris Manning Oct 25, 2023, 5:00am CDT

The first sip

I’m sure you’ve seen the reaction to the Cavs’ new jersey. I’m sure you’ve seen the overall lackluster line of City edition jerseys from Nike. I would also argue that the Cavs’ current jerseys aren’t good and will probably get replaced at some point because they aren’t that good.

Altogether, I’d argue Nike just isn’t good at designing jerseys. This isn’t to totally crap on the designers who worked on these — I’m sure they put in hard work and lots of hours in on them. But the end product just isn’t good. The NBA jerseys that are good — the Bulls, the Celtics, the Knicks, etc. — are the classics. When Nike has to create something new, they often don’t work.

This is a small gripe. It doesn’t affect how much I like watching basketball or how I’ll consume all 82 Cavs games this year. But these jerseys arent’ good. There’s a need here for improvements and a fresh look at NBA jerseys so the quality goes up. The current crop isn’t. good enough.

For the record, if I could pick a set of Cavs jerseys to roll with, it’s these in all their colors. Even if you wanted to keep wine & gold now, just do them in that color scheme.