Check out an early mock-up of the Lakers’ final Nike jersey design

The NBA certainly looks different this season, whether it’s the overhauled Nike designs, or teams shuffling away from wearing uniforms based on home and away. It’s definitely been a noticeable shift, for better or worse. Shouts to the always-tearing jerseys.

Still, a final design from Nike remains to be unveiled for each team, and we finally have an early mock-up of the “city” inspired design for the Los Angeles Lakers. Credit to Conrad Burry of SportsLogos.net for putting this together:

From the looks of things, it seems the Lakers are going with the black-and-gold design as they did with the “Hollywood Nights” variant, but it’s definitely not the same look. The pattern on the jersey might best be described as scales, which would have to be a nod to Kobe Bryant.

It’s worth noting that Conrad Burry, the designer, has indicated the percentage of confidence he has in the mock-up at the top of the graphic. He’s highly confident about both the color (100%) and wordmark (75%), but the pattern itself (50%) and side panels (a flat 0%) remain in the air.

Here’s what Burry says about how these designs are being created:

These mockups are compiled from a general description of the uniform where the only confirmed design detail is the primary colour of the uniform and (for some of the uniforms) the wordmark / logo to be placed on it. The placement of elements, the colours / design of collar and arm-hole details may be inaccurate. The below mockups serve as more of a jumping-off point to begin discussion about the upcoming City Edition uniforms.

The jersey is nice, but the pattern is a bit jarring. Compared to this Orlando Magic mock-up, though, we’ll take it:

C’mon man...