NBA will get rid of jerseys with sleeves if players wish

The NBA, to the dismay of fans and players alike, rolled out a series of alternate uniforms this year with sleeves. Presumably for the purposes of marketing and trying to sell more merchandise, the jerseys just seem out of place to many reasonable people.

Since their appearance, the noise about the jerseys has been constant enough that it is hard to tell if it is people watching or the players themselves who are more against them.

Ric Bucher of Bleacher Report recently caught up with Sal LaRocca, the NBA’s executive Vice President of global merchandising, and talked to him about the jerseys. Let’s start with the upshot, which comes at the very end of the interview:

"In any case, LaRocca said plans for next year’s Christmas Day uniforms and the 2015 All-Star Game already are being discussed. If the All-Stars make it clear they don’t like the look or feel of this year’s uniforms, the league will respond accordingly.‘If the feedback is that the players don’t want to wear them, we won’t,’ LaRocca said. ‘We are 50-50 partners with the players in everything we do.’"

LaRocca also claims that there were many players from each team who tried on and approved of the jerseys. That seems hard to believe. The NBA Players Associations does receive a nice chunk of merchandise sales, so if the jerseys are big sellers it might complicate things a little. Pending such a decision by the players, we should see the end of the jerseys with sleeves soon enough.