Ranking and analyzing all 30 NBA City edition uniforms
9. Indiana Pacers
Indiana’s dark blue and yellow color scheme is a solid one. It is capable of sustaining a full jersey set (by virtue of having two non-white primary colors), and it doesn’t need a ton of design work to turn out well. Give the Pacers a no-frills design that showcases the colors well enough and you’ve got some good uniforms — that’s what they did from 2005 up until this year.
They changed the design this year. The last one was fine, but uniforms had run their course — unless you have a truly iconic set, this is a natural fact of a uniform’s life. After years of a standard white-blue-gold set, they moved away from the regular chest letting and aggressive side paneling (always their biggest flaw). Nike introduced circular letting and a brand new form of side paneling, which featured thin yellow horizontal stripes on top of a blue base.
While the Pacers have not worn circular letting before, this set is a well-worked combination of throwback ideas (the smaller font that comes with the lettering is an old-school thing) and modernity, seen on the panels. They also kept a gold alternate jersey (working as the Statement edition) that followed a similar template — a very important continuity for contrast purposes.
Nike then had some room to work with the City edition. They could afford to try something unique on the design without having to work in a throwback (their Hickory unis serve that purpose) or a fourth base color. It was accomplished beautifully on a City edition that includes a large circled numeral on the front and a yellow stripe down the side, a unique touch.
It is a bit clunky, but it complements the regular set well.