As NBA jersey sales have continued to climb, teams have begun getting more creative with their choices in games.
For example, the Los Angeles Lakers have their traditional home/road jerseys, Sunday whites, and ‘City’ edition jerseys. In previous seasons, the team has also had their all-black ‘Hollywood Nights’ jerseys as well.
While teams traditionally wear lighter color jerseys at home and darker colors on the road, the league got rid of that distinction prior to the 2017-18 NBA season. Now, it isn’t uncommon for teams to wear their traditional road jerseys at home while the road team wears white or another light color, sometimes leading to some confusion.
The Lakers have been guilty of this as well but according to Arash Markazi of Los Angeles Times, they reportedly plan to go back to the traditional home and away jerseys if they make the 2020 NBA playoffs:
If the Lakers make the playoffs, they are expected to go back to a more traditional model of gold at home, white if the game falls on a Sunday or holiday, and purple on the road — with the understanding that if their opponent chooses to wear a dark uniform at home, they would wear gold.
The most recent and possibly most confusing example of this for the Lakers came when they hosted the Golden State Warriors. The Lakers wore their purple jerseys leading to the Warriors to wear their traditional home yellow jerseys. Seeing another team wearing gold on the Lakers home court was weird to watch for many fans.
While it does take some getting used to, Lakers fans would no doubt sacrifice the slight confusion as long as the team was back in the playoffs. However, it looks like they won’t have to.
In the big picture, jersey color is a seemingly minor thing to focus on especially as the Lakers are in the midst of their best start in a decade. But assuming the Lakers are back in the playoffs, it is good to know things will look the same like they always have.
