The NBA announced back on Aug. 11 that Bill Russell’s No. 6 would be retired on a league-wide basis and that all teams would wear a memorial patch for Russell in the 2022-23 season. If you were wondering (as I was) how they’d wedge the patch in with the maker’s marks and ad patches, we now have our first look at how that will be handled.
That comes courtesy of the Hornets’ Twitter feed, which this afternoon featured a bunch of photos from the team’s Media Day session. The pics show various players wearing the team’s uniform, with the Russell patch positioned high on the right shoulder strap, above the Jordan marker’s mark. The patch will presumably be able to sit a bit lower on the jerseys with the standard Nike logo.
It’s interesting that the league has chosen to put the patch on the right side. Memorial patches more often go on the left, because that’s closer to the heart. But hey, can’t have anything competing with that ad patch, right?
I’m hearing that the Celtics will have a different tribute for Russell — stay tuned for that.
(My thanks to Jacob Hill for bringing the Hornets’ pics to my attention.)
Yeah, the memorial patch should be on the left side.
Fixed it for ya
link
Wow – really pushing it up there, aren’t they?
If this doesn’t show the state of athletics in 2022, I am not sure what does.
A memorial for Bill Russell – winningest player/coach in NBA history and an American icon as much for who he was off the court as what he did on it – is pushed to the top of the shoulder strap so as not to move the jersey maker logo (also visible on the left thigh within the picture) and the ad space over the player’s heart, where the memorials truly belong.
This is a weird time.
Is there a reason the Nike Jump Man maker’s mark is on some jerseys, and the standard swoosh on others? is it a North Carolina thing?
The whole Jump Man thing eludes me. I know it’s a maker’s mark, but it’s huge. It’s a Bulls player on jerseys of a team he never played for. And is look super silly on a non-basketball jersey, like the Michigan football jerseys.
The Hornets get the Jordan mark because they’re owned by Jordan.
Other teams get the Jordan mark on their Statement alternates, but not on their other uniforms.
It’s all just silly corporate nonsense.
Ah! forgot he was the owner of the Hornets! Thanks!
My fear is we’ll see the Jump Man on MLB jerseys at some point.
Truly the only good thing about the NBA using the Jumpman logo on the “Statements” is you can easily tell which one is considered the alternate.
Which leads to the odd case of the Lakers’ purple uni being the alternate…
Still corporate nonsense!
The whole “internal media day” thing is weird to me. No other team has theirs for another week. Maybe this is actually them just recording skits, etc for in-arena programming, not an actual traditional media day.
The Celtics city edition was already going to be a tribute to Bill Russell tribute jersey even before he passed, I’m curious if they’re working on repositioning the release of that jersey.