Lakers reveal new purple “Statement” jerseys

Starting with the 2017-18 season, Nike became the head honcho in the NBA for uniform design and branding. In regards to the Los Angeles Lakers, changes seen under Nike’s reign weren’t to come until the 2018-19 season, as the 2017-18 “Baby Lakers” were still wearing the purple-and-gold jerseys you recognized guys like Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, and Lamar Odom wearing around a decade ago.

Then came LeBron James, and with him, Nike made slight, yet very polarizing changes to the Lakers’ main yellow “Icon” (maybe even “mustard” yellow), purple “Statement”, and white “Association” jersey sets. We still have the same “Icon” and “Association” jersey designs, however, the “Statement” edition jerseys have undergone a slight transformation that the team announced on Thursday.

These jerseys join the widely-celebrated “Classic” edition jerseys that were announced in August for the upcoming season.

Now at first glance, you may notice that the new “Statement” uniforms look a little different without being able to indicate the key changes that were made. The differences between the 2018-2022 purple “Statement” jerseys and these are as follows:

• I could be wrong, but it sure looks like the “yellow” of the old purple jerseys has now undergone the same transition to neon “banana” yellow that the main “Icon” jerseys went through between the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons.
• The player’s number on the jerseys is now black-filled with a yellow trim instead of the preceding jersey which was yellow-filled with white trim.
• The Jordan logo and the Lakers’ sponsoring Bibigo logo will also be shown in that neon yellow instead of white.
• The thick black stripe down the side — the other polarizing addition in the 2018-19 jerseys aside from the overall color of the “Icon” editions — remains. However, there was previously a somewhat thick yellow line and white line trimming the sides from top-to-bottom. Those are now replaced by a very thin and, again, neon yellow line.

You can compare the jerseys in full while looking at the picture of the 2021-22 jersey below.

Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images

Personally, I don’t get too worked up about jerseys at all unless they’re absolutely hideous. It can always be worse. Need I remind everyone of the old Wizards jerseys that had gold tops and black bottoms, or even the Mavericks jerseys that were... green.

But how does everyone else in the Lakers fandom feel about these new jerseys? I would assume that more of the neon yellow from the “Icon” edition won’t be welcomed with open arms. The thick black stripe on the side continues to be... a choice.

The jerseys actually reminded me of what is probably one of the worst Lakers jersey sets since Nike took over, and that was the Magic Johnson-inspired jerseys during the 2018-19 season. The team played in these a lot, and I hated every game that they did.

Photo by Ronald Cortes/Getty Images

What do you think about these new purple “Statement” jerseys? Do you like them? Hate them? Does it not really bother you? Would you rather they just go back to designs more similar to the sets that preceded Nike’s takeover? Let us know in the comments!

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