Yesterday, the 2020-2021 Sacramento Kings’ City Edition jersey was leaked. The leaked image only included the top half of the jersey and appeared black with red and blue stripes along the trim, and included a checkered pattern on the sides reminiscent of uniforms worn in the 90’s.
The initial jersey leak was not met with open arms. Many who were commenting on this glimpse into the newest Kings look were not pleased with the design. And quite frankly, you can’t blame the critics.
After the leak and the condemnation of the uniforms, the Sacramento Kings decided to reveal the full jersey, which included the matching shorts and a model (De’Aaron Fox).
Though the jersey looks a tad better when matched with the bottoms and worn on an athlete, the newest Kings uniform is still being met with heavy criticism.
Ever since the launch of City Edition jerseys, it seems as if the Sacramento Kings are an afterthought for Nike when designing all 32 NBA teams.
Starting off in 2017-2018, the Kings were given these City Edition jerseys:
The powder blue is a throwback to the Kings’ jerseys of the past, and although I don’t mind the color scheme, the design is atrocious.
While most teams are given better looking kits that incorporate concepts related to the team’s city or state, the Kings were given basic looking uniforms with no exciting appeal.
The next season, it was as if Nike could care less about Sacramento once again and simply changed the lion logo to the words “SACTOWN” and left the rest of the jersey exactly the same.
To make matters even worse, for the most recent season’s City Edition jerseys, Nike kept the exact same design from the year prior but changed the powder blue color to red.
Red isn’t even a current Kings color. In fact, it’s only a secondary color in throwback jerseys. So why make the whole jersey red?
Kings fans get to watch other teams rep conceptual, appealing uniforms while Sacramento continues to receive complete and utter eyesores.
Although this year isn’t much better, at least Nike has moved on from the ugly design from the past three seasons.
Even so, the jersey looks like a bad ripoff of the Heat’s Miami Vice jerseys, and again, doesn’t really incorporate elements or colors of the Kings, Sacramento, or California.
I am once again disappointed in the reveal of the City Edition uniforms and I can’t help but to suspect that little thought is going into the Kings’ design by Nike.
Browsing Twitter alone, I am able to find several better jersey concepts than what Nike has provided the last four seasons.
The Kings tried backing up the design on Instagram claiming, “Sometimes inspiration comes from the colors that got you here.” And, “Crafted in honor of Sacramento’s colorful past.” Which is basically Sacramento’s public affairs team trying their best to market the obscenity handed to them.
The color scheme still doesn’t incorporate Kings, Sacramento, or California elements, regardless of what the marketing team tries to make us believe.
Perhaps the kits will look better in a live game or maybe we just need to time to warm up to them. But for the time being, it’s hard not to be disappointed in what seems likely to be another dud brought to you by Nike. I guess Kings fans can now say that disappointment is literally woven into the fabrics of this organization.
