Just last year, the Utah Jazz introduced nondescript black and yellow jerseys that seemingly had no connection to the franchise’s past and looked more like practice gear from an old issue of Eastbay magazine.
Now, they’ve seemingly accepted that those jerseys were a miss and announced four new kits that are somehow both nostalgic and modern.
Goodbye, Eastbay and highlighter yellow. Hello, mountains, purple and a nod to the 1990s Jazz teams that made back-to-back NBA Finals against Michael Jordan.
With Utah’s about-face, it’s easy to think back to some other classic looks worthy of a comeback.
Those include the 1990s teal Charlotte Hornets jerseys worn by Alonzo Mourning and Larry Johnson. The Detroit Pistons’ teals are in the mix, too. The first few years of Minnesota Timberwolves jerseys deserve a nod.
But none of those are in the group we want back the most.
Some of the above (and some of the following) have been in their organizations’ rotations in recent years, but they deserve more permanence.
The five best are below.
In the early 2000s, Carmelo Anthony almost instantly became a cultural phenomenon. And his Denver Nuggets’ baby blue, white and gold jerseys had a lot to do with it.
For years, Nuggets gear was everywhere. A small market, middle-of-the-country organization had its merchandise showing up all over both coasts. Melo’s Jordan brand shoes were iconic, too.
The modern adjustment here could be turning down the shininess a bit, but the way these colors complement each other is perfect.
The Nuggets are in the middle of their most successful era, and it deserves the team’s best jerseys.
The Toronto Raptors have a pretty wild name. It has as much to do with Jurassic Park and its popularity at the time as it does the possibility that raptors once roamed that part of the globe.
But over time, the team has grown into the name, kind of like a baby typically grows into whatever name it was given at birth.
Initially, Toronto’s jerseys seemed to sort of embrace the weirdness of the name. The purple and red was a loud, unusual, eye-catching combination. And if you’re named after a dinosaur, why not have a giant dinosaur emblazoned on the torso?
In recent years, the Raptors have sort of shied away from the actual animal in the name, at least in terms of imagery. Now, it’s time to go back.
Apparently, teal was all the rage in the 1990s, but the brilliance of these kits goes far beyond the most prominent color.
There’s so much going on here. The block, three-dimensional lettering for Grizzlies. The red lettering for Vancouver. The accents around the neck, shoulders and waistbands. And of course, the grizzly bears on the side of the shorts.
And yet, in concert, it somehow doesn’t feel too busy.
These are loud without being obnoxious. And like those old Raptors jerseys, they’re fully embracing the team name.
Jerseys like this make a statement that would fit pretty well with the often brash and exciting games of Ja Morant, Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr.
Like early-career Melo with the Nuggets, our connection to certain jerseys has to have at least some connection to the players who wore them. And few duos across NBA history were as flat-out cool as Shaquille O’Neal and Anfernee Hardaway.
Shaq is arguably the most physically dominant player of all time, and his arrival with the Orlando Magic was like those first few games of Zion Williamson on the New Orleans Pelicans (without the eventual injuries). And Penny was this dynamic, wing-sized point guard who played like some kind of Magic Johnson-Michael Jordan hybrid.
Together, they captured the attention of basketball fans all over the world in the 1990s, and it didn’t hurt that they did so in these brilliantly simple Orlando jerseys.
The royal blue pops, especially with the white pinstripes. The font for the lettering and numbers almost feels magical, especially with a star replacing the A.
These aren’t just some of the best jerseys of the 1990s. They’re some of the best the league has ever seen.
For NBA fans of a certain age, those black-and-blue, Shaq-and-Penny-era jerseys almost immediately come to mind when you think of the Magic.
And the same goes for the Phoenix Suns. That team has had plenty of fun, exciting teams in recent years. Devin Booker went to the Finals in 2021. Steve Nash’s seven-seconds-or-less teams are some of the most entertaining in NBA history.
But mere mention of this organization can instantly take you back to the years when Charles Barkley, Kevin Johnson and Dan Majerle were dominating the league in bright white, purple and orange. The sun flare across the torso and placement of the team name and player’s number remain unique to this day.
Bringing them back in full force for the current star-laden team is the right move.
We could go with several different variations of the Seattle SuperSonics jerseys here. The Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp era certainly deserves a mention, but this piece is lacking a little 2000s flair, and these kits worn just prior to the organization’s departure for Oklahoma City are sharp.
Like the Nuggets look from earlier, the shine could probably be flattened a bit. But the green, white, and yellow go together beautifully, and this design’s simplicity works.
Let’s face it, though—Seattle is here as much as an appeal for OKC to bring back some variation of the jerseys as it is for the league to bring back this organization entirely.
The NBA is ripe for expansion, and the SuperSonics should come back as part of that expansion.
This one may be a little controversial.
This version of the Atlanta Hawks’ jerseys has actually shown up in multiple “worst jerseys in NBA history” pieces over the years.
But the writers who put them there, well, they’re just flat-out wrong.
Like the Grizzlies and Raptors jerseys above, this one is obviously embracing the mascot in a way few, if any, teams do today. The jumbo print for both the team name and the number is a nice contrast against the black. And the gradation from black to red is fun, too.
This uniform, complete with the massive, ball-clawing hawk on the torso, is a little too loud for some tastes, but the current Hawks’ jerseys could use a little more 90s-like excitement.
If you count the years when they were the Syracuse Nationals, the Philadelphia 76ers have been around since 1949. That gives them roughly three-quarters of a century of logos and uniforms, and most of those are the pretty standard and expected red, white, and blue.
It makes sense for this team. The Declaration of Independence was signed at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The Constitutional Convention was held in the same city.
The name 76ers is an homage to American history, so it’s no surprise that the team’s colors reflect those of the flag.
But Philly’s most unique and possibly best jerseys departed from that theme a bit in the 2000s, and they were worn by Allen Iverson, perhaps the most iconic player in franchise history.
There are still some hallmarks of the typical Sixers’ gear. There’s red, white and blue in the scheme. The star over the “I” in Sixers is obviously another nod to the flag. But all of the above pops a little better against the black backdrop of the rest of the jersey.
And it’d be fun to see Philadelphia’s most recent MVP, Joel Embiid, playing in the uniform made famous by the last 76er MVP before him.