Folks, we did it again. Another week in the books and more sports than we could handle. Our latest SSM is here to review it all.
College football playoff, final four is set Ohio State and Georgia, could we see an upset? Other side of the bracket, Michigan vs. TCU Sad we only have three more college games to go through
Potential Super Bowl preview, a game all wanted Dolphins and 49ers, two teams deep bonded It wasn’t meant to be, you see, game just fell quite short Both QBs ended up the injury report
Jacob deGrom, your newest Texas Ranger AL West hitters are about to be in danger Big hit for the Mets, another big arm gone Had so many off years, Mets fans want to stay on
Jose Alvarado! We don’t know him either Thirty eight on Sunday, didn’t take a breather Undrafted to bucket getter, a great sports story Pelicans are basking in some rarely found glory
It’s that time of year! For the third consecutive season, the fashion department here at UDS has been called upon to make stupid jokes about the latest versions of the NBA “City Edition” jerseys. Let’s get right down to business.
Brooklyn Nets – just like last years, using the “Friends” font makes this jersey dumb…but there’s not much the Nets could’ve done that’s worse than what’s going on with that organization right now.
Oklahoma City Thunder – this poor organization has never done this well; so not much to expect here. Much like the Pistons, they should just do the Supersonics uniforms.
Orlando Magic – while these aren’t a huge jump from their normal ‘fits, the fact that they didn’t incorporate orange this year like they have in the past is a win.
Portland Trailblazers – these are like the away jerseys of the Suns jerseys, and should be included in the Spurs lawsuit. Big year for teal in the NBA.
Sacramento Kings 2022-23 Nike NBA City Editing Uniform – a tribute to Fans and City
A great start to the week for all of us uniform analysts out there. The NBA dropped their 2021-2022 “City Edition” jerseys on Monday. One of our favorite traditions around here is being completely uninformed fashion critics. As we did last season, we are here once again to provide commentary that no one asks for or needs.
The 404 has always held us down. We bring you this jersey as our ultimate tribute to the 🅰️ pic.twitter.com/Lpxa9yzNlZ
Brooklyn Nets – always a good idea to throw back to the Jason Kidd/Richard Jefferson/Kenyon Martin era. Turns out the Nets Big 3 in the early aughts might end up being better than their current Big 3.
Chicago Bulls – the throwback font on “Chicago” is cool, but the basic number font doesn’t pair well, be better Bulls.
Cleveland Cavaliers – at time of writing, the Cavs have yet to post about their City Edition jerseys; simply shocking that an organization so well run would miss something like this. If you really want to get an idea, go watch Hoosiers.
Denver Nuggets – not only are these fun, but educational! I liked that Denver incorporated the ABA ball, and had no idea before today that their old logo was a miner. Also, the rainbow/mountain look always plays for the Nuggets in the uniform game.
Introducing… our #NBA75 City Edition jersey & uniform. Savvy and skilled, with grit and a never-back-down attitude, it’s a style of play that can only come from the Motor City. We hustle 𝒹𝒾𝒻𝒻𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓃𝓉.
Detroit Pistons – aren’t these pretty much just…their normal uniforms with the colors flipped? Only redeeming quality here is a that hint of Grant Hill era green/turquoise on the shorts.
Golden State Warriors – same vibes as the Pistons here for me. These are basically jerseys we’ve seen before, with one saving grace: the “splash” feature is awesome.
Houston Rockets – these are slick. I always liked the Barkley/Pippen/early Yoa Ming era Rockets jerseys, and it’s a nice touch incorporating that with their current logo on the shorts without it looking dumb.
Los Angeles Clippers – wowzers these are clean. Nothing crazy, crisp letter & number font, great shade of baby blue. Not many wins for the Clips so far this year, but this is one.
Los Angeles Lakers – “lost” is an appropriate word the Lakers used in the above tweet. I get what they were going for here, but I think it’s a miss. If you’re one of the most storied franchises in NBA history and you City Edition jersey looks like the Charlotte Hornets Starter pullover jacket we all had in the 90’s, you missed.
Memphis Grizzlies – anytime you have the opportunity to lean into some of the greatest uniforms of all time, you need to take it. Opportunity squandered.
Miami Heat – year in and year out, the Heat are at the top of any type of alternate uniform list, and nothing changes here. The ability to pull off all of the neon blues, pinks, etc. puts them at an unfair advantage. Excellent as usual.
The City Edition makes its on-court debut November 17th at @FiservForum vs. LA.
Minnesota Timberwolves – Kevin Garnett would be proud, and so am I. Nice and easy look, the accent trees on the belt and shorts, with the throwback font as a cherry on top.
Philadelphia 76ers – nice 70’s ABA vibe here. The multi-colored side panel gives off a little Nuggets/rainbow feature as well.
Phoenix Suns – the Suns haven’t posted about their City Edition jerseys at time of writing. But, it doesn’t appear they changed anything from last year. Those were perfect, so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
This year’s City edition honors three of the most iconic achievements in franchise history – the 1977 NBA Championship and the 1990 and 1992 Western Conference Championships.https://t.co/idNjRbJvjnpic.twitter.com/XJKkSuxC17
Portland Trailblazers – not a huge stray away from their normal threads, but this still plays. How about the argyle-ish side panel, when was the last time we saw that on an NBA uniform?
Sacramento Kings – the lion logo is above par, the rest is fine. I’m going to use my joke from last year’s review (because it was so hilarious), I can see thousands of bros at Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza rocking these bad boys solely because is has “sac” on it, which is approval enough for me.
San Antonio Spurs – all in on these. Bright colors really work when teams try to think outside of the box on uniforms, and the Spurs’ color history works perfect for this.
Toronto Raptors – the Raptors kind of have a Magic/orange obsession with gold; very random. But you have to give some points here for the old school logo. A dinosaur dribbling a basketball, how absurd.
Utah Jazz – no social media post, and based on the picture above it doesn’t look like the Jazz put too much effort into their City Edition jerseys this year, sad!
A mix of the old and the new.
Introducing our 2021-22 NBA City Edition uniform 🔥
Washington Wizards – ending with a winner here. Fairly basic design, love the font from the Washington B*llets days. Well done in our nation’s capital.
Another year, another mediocre City Edition jersey review. This is a fun thing the NBA does every year, and while I’m sure they love the conversation and extra dollars that come with it, the misses are almost always as good as the hits.
On Tuesday, the heavily reported rift between the Philadelphia 76ers and Ben Simmons reached a new level. After previously leaking he was done with the 76ers, the point guard reported unannounced, practiced with his phone in his pocket yesterday, and then got kicked out of practice today for being unwilling to participate.
After saying “g’day mate” to his teammates on the way out of practice, Simmons was subsequently suspended for the team’s opening night matchup against the Pelicans. Woof.
Simmons will now have a some time away from the team. With all of the strange offseason moves in the past few months, what he’ll do with this time, no one knows.
He would presumably have time to enjoy all the Vegemite he desires. Or maybe practice his free throw shooting? How about trying to get back in with the Kardashian family? While his old fling Kendall Jenner is currently with Devin Booker, Simmons has already shown that he follows the “just because there’s a goalie, doesn’t mean you can’t score” mantra in life.
After a tumultuous offseason and a seemingly broken relationship between the 76ers and their point guard, all you can hope for is that this thing doesn’t get any uglier than it already is. If both sides can sit down and talk over some cheesesteak and meat pies, maybe they find some middle ground. Until then, the saga continues.
Eighteen former NBA players were charged and brought into custody Thursday after authorities discovered an insurance fraud plan aimed at the league’s Health and Welfare Benefit Plan.
The charges allege that the group of retired players attempted to defraud the plan of approximately $4 million dollars in awards. The plan allegedly involved submitting fake invoices for medical services or equipment needed by players after their service in the NBA had ended.
Pretty serious shit. The list of all 18 players can be found in the link above. The three biggest names in the list of fraudsters was Tony Allen, Glen “Big Baby” Davis, and Darius Miles. Allen played 14 seasons between the Celtics, Grizzlies, and Pelicans. Davis was in the league for nine years with the Celtics, Magic, and Clippers. Miles was an eight year veteran with the Clippers, Cavs, Trail Blazers, and Grizzlies.
This had to have been the biggest steal in all three of these guys’ careers, right? According to basketball reference, Allen averaged 1.4 steals/game in his career, Davis 0.7, and Miles a shade under a full steal per game at 0.9.
No individual stats were immediately available on how much each of these three received from the scam before being caught. But, if we’re going by pre-retirement compared to post-retirement careers, all three are right around their playing days’ stealing average.
After today, all three of their post-retirement numbers sit at 1.0 steals/retirement. Compared to their on court careers, Allen dips a bit, but marked improvement by both David and Miles.
You often hear that even though professional athletes bodies may break down during their playing careers, their competitive drives never leave. Props to these three for continuing working on their stealing ability post-career.
NBA All-Star Sunday is our focus this week. We recap an enjoyable Sunday night, event by event, in this week’s SSM.
The premiere event in our basketball binge Was the Taco Bell sponsored Skills Challenge A long shot winner, Domantas Sabonis Dribbling, passing, shooting, guy could not miss
Next event up, the three point contest From behind the arc, let’s see who’s best Trey’s were falling, it was a tree point flurry An obvious winner here, the man, Steph Curry
The dunk contest was the halftime show We had Obi Toppin and two names you won’t know It was Anfernee Simons of Blazers fame Who won the contest, and cemented his name
Now the main event, Team Lebron vs. KD Alley oops, no defense, and plenty of three’s A glorified scrimmage, but it’s always fun 170-150 was the score, Team Lebron won
Another ASG in the books, a way different look Great job by the NBA, and all who partook A normal All-Star weekend next year, fingers crossed Without events like this, sports fans would be lost
The NBA is the the best in the big four sports at a lot of things. They by far and away have the best commissioner in Adam Silver, they lead the charge in the “bubble” phenomenon while getting their sport back on track during the pandemic, and have been for the most part the league least afraid to take stands on both social and political issues.
They also are not afraid to get weird with it when it comes to uniforms, which I respect. Don’t get me wrong, I love the traditional uniforms of Alabama football, Yankee baseball, etc. But getting out of your comfort zone is always a good thing, both in uniforms and in life. In recent years, the NBA has begun creating new uniforms for teams, calling them “City Edition” jerseys that are meant to show “team history and unique city stories.” The 2021 versions were fully released today, and boy are they something.
Atlanta Hawks – while the MLK tribute is awesome, this looks like a jersey from a low budget, late 90’s Disney movie about a team full of scrubs who pulled out all of the right tricks, and had juuuust the right amount of luck to upset the far superiorly talented rivals from across town.
Boston Celtics – an ode to the 17 championship banners hanging in TD Garden, this jersey is the aforementioned far superiorly talented rivals from across town that the Atlanta Hawks beat in the low budget late 90’s Disney movie.
Chicago Bulls – the Bulls slogan is “Touch the Clouds,” which is ironic because they haven’t touched anywhere higher than eighth place in the Eastern Conference in the past five years.
Dallas Mavericks – hard to find much wrong with these, besides the fact that one of the NBA’s best players, Luka Dončić, wears number 77. Get the hell out of here and give the man a real number.
Detroit Pistons – very fitting slogan here, “Tough Together,” Pistons fans have had to watch some tough looking basketball together for the last decade or so.
Golden State Warriors – hard to argue with this one, paying tribute to Oakland after moving into their new arena in San Francisco. Like most things The Warriors have done since they drafted Steph Curry, this was done right.
Los Angeles Clippers – these are pretty much identical to the Clippers 2019-2020 “City Edition” jerseys, so bonus points for fresh creativity. Bonus points for making me want to play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas when I see the font.
Memphis Grizzlies – these are solid, but I wish they would’ve just went for it with the old Vancouver Grizzlies uniforms, which are just gorgeous and remind me of another one of my favorite old players, Bryant “Big Country” Reeves.
Miami Heat – this is the perfect city/team for something like “City Edition” jerseys. Miami can do anything with any neon pink, blue, orange, etc. and make it look great. A very solid, wavy effort here.
Milwaukee Bucks – does anyone really associate Milwaukee with the Great Lakes? I don’t, but can only assume this is what Giannis Antetokounmpo wanted, and The Bucks continue to do whatever they can to keep him happy and in Milwaukee.
Minnesota Timberwolves – this is just generally boring. Also the slogan “The North Star That Guides & Unites” is pretty great for a organization that has seemingly no direction at this point.
New Orleans Pelicans – an ambitious stab here, although I think it came out looking more like what I would have came up with for uniforms of my “Create A Team” in NBA Live 2002. You know, the one with Steve Francis on the cover.
Orlando Magic – Orlando has messed around with incorporating orange into their uniforms in last years “City Edition,” and I just don’t get it. They have a great color scheme, and should use it here.
Sacramento Kings – I can see thousands of bros at Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza rocking these bad boys solely because is has “sac” on it, which is approval enough for me.
San Antonio Spurs – very smooth. Slick font, crisp lines across the chest. I’m all in here.
ROAM THE NORTH@Raptors City Edition jerseys are launching in March 2021. Shop the rest of the Raptors City Edition Collection today ➡️ https://t.co/NyoY8DuBlr
🗓️ NBA Season Starts Christmas Week with Games Beginning Tuesday, December 22. pic.twitter.com/f5iIlW1NSy
Toronto Raptors – from a team that’s going to be playing in Tampa Bay next year, missed opportunity to double up on your sales by throwing “Tampa Bay” and “Toronto” across the chest. Those friendly Canadians are too nice to make people pay twice though, eh?
Washington Wizards – ending our recap here with a banger. These are great, from the throwback logo to the flag pattern moving down the sides. This is the best thing the Wizards franchise has done in a while.
Even though it seems like the NBA season ended last week, it will be back on Christmas Day. Bring on The Association and all of the great, and not so great, “City Edition” jerseys that come with it.