Ranking and analyzing all 30 NBA City edition uniforms
28. Cleveland Cavaliers
Cleveland’s 2010-2017 threads, which were simplistic, standardized and well-contrasted, were the peak of Cavaliers uniform history. Their new Nike set is a downgrade, regrettably demoting yellow to an accent color and introducing unnecessary frills (small yellow side panels, navy coming to the forefront as a secondary color on the red “Icons”) that act to take away the strengths of their previous set.
This is all made worse by the “Statement” edition black alternates, a way overused jersey featuring a large “C” logo on the center. Cleveland exemplify the worst of the black-for-black’s-sake phenomenon. As a general rule, teams that use dark red and yellow as their primary colors should not incorporate black, because the dark contrasting effect of black is offset by the darker red, leaving the yellow looking out of place.
The Cavs’ City editions do not feature overtly ill-fitting colors, and they are not as frustratingly fixable as their home and away set. But why light gray? Why the sudden prominence of yellow and the neglecting of the four primary colors used elsewhere? Why use darker gray along with light gray?
Nike pulled off a perfect storm of uniform sins here: A cringey slogan, ruinous side paneling, written words Browns-style down the shorts, and impractical white lettering and numbering. They look terrible on-court, too, just like the pre-trade deadline iteration of the team.