Philadelphia 76ers: We need to talk about the All-Star uniforms

The NBA has officially released the 2019 All-Star game uniforms, and they should look… familiar to fans of the Philadelphia 76ers.

For the second season in a row, the Philadelphia 76ers will have at least one player representing the City of Brotherly Love in the NBA All-Star game, with the potential to triple that total by the time all is said and done.

Sure, the number should be four, as J.J. Redick has put together his best professional season at the tender age of 34, but if the voting totals are of any indication, there would have to be a historic number of injuries to Eastern Conference backcourt players to earn the 13th year vet his first All-Star berth.

But this article isn’t about which players on this season’s Sixers squad are or aren’t deserving of All-Star votes (even Markelle Fultz somehow received a player vote). No, it’s about the game’s uniforms, which were officially released on the All-Star game’s Twitter account to correspond with the starter announcements.

Look familiar? Well, they should.

Unlike last season, when the uniforms were effectively all white or all black with a player’s team’s logo across their chests, this year’s uniforms, made by Jordan Brand, have instead opted to get a bit more creative and incorporate some red, white, and blue pinstriping, and a trio of stars down the side.

Spoiler alert: They look like an almost perfect amalgamation of the Sixers’ Christmas Day ‘Earned’ uniforms, and their typical white away garbs.

Coincidence? I think not, and apparently, neither does Twitter, as a number of likeminded deductive reasoners have made similar assertions since the jerseys went live.

Who knows, maybe this is a way of the league acknowledging the next great NBA franchise, or as a tip of the cap seeing as Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Jimmy Butler are all but guaranteed to earn berths this season, but either way, the jersey looks like a perfect addition to any fan’s collection, and could go down as an all-timer in the same way that the 1996 All-Star game’s chili pepper logo has captured the hearts of vintage NBA fans over the last few years.

Furthermore, maybe the Sixers can take a cue from Michael Jordan‘s namesake brand, and return the favor? I mean, fans in Philly have been desperately longing for a return of the Allen Iverson-era black and gold uniforms as a throwback nod to the Hall of Fame point guard, a look that has been noticeably absent since Brett Brown came to town back in 2013.

With the groundwork now in place, I personally would love to see the Sixers swap out the blue for gold and finally don black uniforms for the first time since 2009. Combining the classic ‘bad boy’ aesthetic with the team’s current typography and logos? That could be an All-Star combination for the Philadelphia 76ers (ugh I’m so sorry).