It’s become a tradition that each year, Nike’s new Celtics City Edition jersey will leak before they’re officially announced, and each year I will be wholeheartedly offended.
The year 2024 is no different, despite my greatest optimism that maybe, just maybe, Nike would turn to the great Pete Rogers to handle the task.
Instead, Tuesday afternoon served as the first red flag for the 2024-25 season, as leaked designs of Boston’s new alternate jersey surfaced online.
Nike really outdid themselves here with the new cash grab. This year, the fighting champion (I would never say defending champion, out of respect for Joe Mazzulla) Celtics will be forced to wear these neon-lettered uniforms at least three times (the league’s minimum for the City uniforms).
These literally look like knockoffs that Target sells for $20.
The black base is new from last year, while the side design looks to be the same, with the curve now being lime green rather than a wooden color.
When the NBA officially released the 2023-24 slate of alternate uniforms last November, they pointed to each team’s or city’s history as inspiration for the designs.
“The Nike NBA City Edition platform features robust, hyperlocal stories from each of our NBA teams, creating a tapestry of the history of our game, its teams and the cities that support them,” said Christopher Arena, Head of On-Court and Brand Partnerships at the NBA.
Do these jerseys have anything to do with Boston or the Celtics as an organization?
Nope, not even close.
The closest thing we’ve seen to this was the 2021 “Earned Edition” jerseys — or the Earth Day uniforms, as many called them.
I get it.
Some people do like change and they like new creative designs. That’s all good and fine, but the most offensive aspect of this is that, again, Pete Rogers has designed countless Celtics jerseys that are all better than what Nike has and continues to put out.
Here are five random designs from Pete.
Even if the five I picked aren’t your cup of tea, there are over 100 more jersey mockups on his Twitter/X page and he has a whole shop where you can buy his designs online. Nike could’ve picked from any of these but didn’t, and that’s unbelievably lame.
If you really want your day ruined, think about the matching court that Boston will play its “NBA Cup” games on this fall.
