Courtesy of Adidas
The Boston Celtics have a lot of history and wanted to honor that history with a jersey. So they created these new Parquet Pride Collection alternate jerseys.
And to honor their lustrous history as the NBA’s most decorated franchise with 17 championships, they:
- Used short sleeves.
- Made the jerseys gray instead of green.
- Added on a weird belt-buckle thing.
- Had a rookie as one of their two models.
Look, alternate jerseys are fine. Short-sleeved jerseys are fine in limited doses. Weird color changes for alternates can be acceptable.
But if you’re trying to honor your history, this is just clumsy. Bill Russell didn’t play in gray-scale, that was just the pictures. He wore green, like anyone who has ever played for the Celtics. And he wore tank-top jerseys.
Also, short-sleeved jerseys have worked best when they try to mimic a team’s regular jerseys as closely as possible.
The good here is that the parquet floor pattern is pretty cool. It’s a very good idea for an alternate, and it would have been really awesome had they brought out beloved Hall of Famer and broadcaster Tommy Heinsohn to model a green, tank-top version that could be worn a few times.
But the Celtics arguably have the best jerseys in the NBA, and these move too far away from the unbeatable originals.
