Since 2006, Adidas has been the official outfitter of the NBA. And on Monday, it was announced that the NBA would not renew their contract with them after the 2016-17 season. I have not been a fan of many things Adidas has done in terms of aesthetics, design and common decency.
And during their time with the NBA, they have made more than their fair share of terrible outfits for NBA teams. Some of these designs had to have come from the NBA but still, it’s Adidas with the creative control on these outfits. And with that, I give you their 10 biggest blunders during their partnership with the NBA (and there’s two more years to come).
10- All-Star Game uniforms
I liked it when the All-Star Game uniforms were simple. Or even the years when the players would just wear their own team uniforms. But Adidas decided to get crazy and give us the following monstrosities.
9- Camo
Terrible.
What is that? Essentially newer fabric that is supposed to be lighter, which eliminated the sheen out of some uniforms. The numbers had to be changed for the Grizzlies from this to this. They were lightweight but looked very cheap.
7- Championship politics
This isn’t too bad of an addition except it clashes with some uniforms that don’t feature gold in their identity. (This might have been a decision from the NBA.) Worst of all, the Thunder don’t have a tab even though the Sonics did win a title. Yet the Kings have a tab even though their franchise won their title in another city. Go figure.
Couldn’t they have made a tab that matched the team colors at least?
6- Getting throwbacks wrong for merchandise sales
Speaking of getting history wrong, how about this?
5- Wizards uniform screwup
The Wizards came out with a twist on their old Bullets uniform. It’s a great idea until you realized that stripe across the back made the number hard to read. Shortly thereafter, the team had to eliminate the stripe.
4- Not a team color? Not a problem.
I am not big on teams wearing uniforms based on colors that aren’t part of their identity. Is this just a ploy for merchandise sales?
3- Cookie-cutter warmup outfits
You’re Adidas, so you MUST have three stripes everywhere! All those warmups were essentially the same design every year because of the forced stripes. Just move the colors to another sleeve, but keep the stripes in the same place. There was no iconic look for each team because the template was the same. It was so boring and not very creative.
2- Christmas day nightmares
Who approved these? Why would Adidas design uniforms that are so ugly? Big logos? Illegible letters? Forgettable designs? That’s Christmas for ya!
This past Christmas, we had this odd idea.
Let’s not forget this one.
Or how about this mess?
1- Sleeves
It makes no sense and people don’t like it. LeBron doesn’t like them either.
Steph Curry (2:13 mark) said they should get rid of these promotional sleeve jerseys.
Remember when they debuted sleeves in the NBA by making the Warriors wear this and these clown shorts?
Since then, sleeves are everywhere and it’s got to go. They make some team identities look like some rec league T-shirt.
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Two more years of this nonsense. Then Adidas will go away. In about a month, it is expected that an announcement of the new outfitter will come.
But at the end of the day... 
