Last season, when Nike took over the reins from Adidas for outfitting the NBA, they put the Toronto Raptors, league, and fashion world on notice when they overhauled the entire jersey system.
While some of these changes were on the technical end, from the use of different patented fabrics and technologies, designed with the intent of improving athlete performance, others were more visually driven, appealing to the fandom and rich culture of basketball.
While the “Association”, “Icon”, and “Statement” edition jerseys (as Nike has dubbed them) are essentially just the familiar home, away, and secondary jerseys that we’ve seen before during Adidas’ tenure, fans were most excited about the mysterious “City” edition kits.