Every once in a while, there is a marketing decision so bad you wonder how it got through the meetings. Because of the industrial revolution, most corporate decisions happen on multiple levels, often with committees making rounds of edits and tweaking plans before they go public. It’s glorious capitalism! With competition, comes quality control!
With all that in mind, here’s Nike’s latest attempt to design NBA jerseys, which I can only assume were designed by one individual in solitary confinement with zero input from the outside world:
Details of Specter Edition @NBA X @Nike
— Kings Uni Tracker (@SacKings_Unis) September 10, 2026
— The designs are pulling in logos from the teams logos. pic.twitter.com/9wC94LrGxS
Are we … is this … are we being for real right now? These are the most Kid Pix-looking, 12-year-old-who-just-discovered-what-“gradient”-means-esque disasters in the history of jersey design. They are so ugly, so putridly unappealing; “Alexa, just zoom in on the logos and blur the resulting image.” Oh my god, guys.
Nike's latest NBA jerseys are so bad it doesn't even make sense
I don’t blame the artists; I’ve written a number of terrible things in my life that editors have had to say “hey, maybe we rethink that angle,” or “what if you leaned more into this part of it rather than that?” which is polite editor speak for bro, what on earth were you thinking? It’s why we have quality control. It’s why we all need friends and can’t just live in the woods trying to solve the mysteries of life by ourselves like Henry David Thoreau.
But somehow, nobody, at any point in the process, had the nerve to say these suck, a bit like nobody told Nico Harrison that trading Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis is a completely insane idea. This is malpractice at the executive level — somebody powerful had to tell whoever green-lit this that they needed to give it another go.
Will people actually still buy these designs?
We have completely lost the plot on jersey designs. If I pulled up to a Boston bar wearing that Celtics jersey people would straight up not even understand what it was. I would get questions if I had tie-dyed an old jersey; the Knicks one looks like a Spider-Man Halloween costume. Are the five stars on the Philadelphia 76ers jersey a sign on the door of a Five-Star laundromat? The Kings’ looks like a random splotch of color, the Lakers’ looks like a teaser for a Marvel movie where they aren’t yet telling you the title. The Hawks and Pistons are something a 10-year-old would make in Microsoft Paint, and the Warriors’ is a Roman toga. Goodness gracious guys.
Thankfully, Nike is a small, mom-and-pop shop with a lot of room to grow as they further professionalize their operations … oh wait, no, they’re actually the ninth-largest clothing brand IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. Can we please just design passable jerseys? There are scores of X accounts making fan designs that blow this stuff out of the water (shoutout Pete Rogers), just hire them! I am totally susceptible to beautiful jersey designs — I will often throw caution to the wind and spend whatever on a cool new Boston design. Let me spend money Nike! Stop preventing me from making irresponsible financial decisions because the jerseys are so unattractive. I beg.
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