Los Angeles Lakers unveil Shaquille O’Neal’s city jerseys, Twitter explodes

The Los Angeles Lakers “City” edition jerseys caused quite the uproar on social media this past week.

The Los Angeles Lakers caused an uproar on social media earlier this week when they unveiled their new  Nike “City” jersey that was inspired and designed by Hall of Fame center, Shaquille O’Neal. Most of the feedback they received was negative, but there are a few reasons why Lakers fans should give these jerseys a chance.

Unlike the rest of the NBA, which uses the team’s city as inspiration for the Nike “City” edition jerseys, the Lakers get inspiration from their past legends, which they call the “Lakers Lore” collection.

In 2017, when Nike took control of the NBA uniforms, they were inspired by Kobe Bryant. The jerseys featured a prominent snakeskin Black Mamba pattern throughout the design, and these were well received.

Last year’s edition was meant to honor Magic Johnson and was met with the same backlash as the Shaq jerseys because of the purple pinstripe look, that turned off most fans.

Fans even called these “swap meet” jerseys because of how far they strayed away from the original jerseys.

This year’s design has a few features that instantly make Shaq come to mind, and cause it to stand out without being too different than most Lakers’ jerseys. For starters, it has the prominent Lakers logo on the front with a large purple drop shadow, similar to the number drop shadow that Shaq wore to start his Lakers career.

The V neck style of the jersey is also a call back to the early 2000s when all of the Lakers’ jerseys were this style.

To make it more unique to the big Aristotle, they also have stars on the side that incorporate the Lakers’ retired numbers inside the stars, including his number 34. This particular edition was important to Shaq, he was quoted on the Lakers Instagram post saying,

"“It means a lot to me to have the retired numbers on the side of the jersey. It was what motivated me. When I was designing the uniforms, I don’t want people to forget about the other greats. I want to recognize them, to also thank them.”"

This style on the side panel has never been done on a Lakers jersey before and could be symbolic of the stars that grace the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which are a landmark of Los Angeles.

The panel on the side also has an interesting abstract triangle striped pattern as opposed to the normal purple or gold solid color on the side. The shape of the design is meant to represent Phil Jackson’s triangle offense that was a major key to the Lakers winning three straight titles from 2000-2002.

Some other subtle touches feature Shaq’s signature at the bottom right corner, and M.D.E. embossed on the white stripe dividing the jersey from the side panel, that stands for Most Dominant Ever. The shorts even have a call out to Shaq’s number 34 underneath the left vent to personalize them even more.

The jersey also includes a special patch dedicated to the late great Lakers’ owner, Dr. Jerry Buss. The patch is gold in color and has Dr. Buss written in bold white letters, and Shaq also mentioned the patch in the post saying,

“Playing for him was one of the best highlights of my life… Dr. Buss will always be forever in my heart and that’s why when I created this new uniform, I wanted his name to be remembered.”

Even though the two had somewhat of a falling out at the end of Shaq’s Lakers run, it is awesome to see him pay tribute to one of the greatest owners the NBA has seen.

With the age of cancel culture and twitter bullies, of course, it easy to hate on anything, including this jersey design. However, it has too many positive tributes and hints of creativity to dislike it.

Here are some of the most favorited negative responses on twitter, from Lakers fans upset by the jersey.

I feel more like this Laker fan…

In my opinion, this jersey is better than last year’s, but it still comes short of the Black Mamba design that Kobe put out in the first edition of the Lakers Lore series.

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However, even the black jersey strayed a little too far away from the original Lakers colors, because black is not a classic Lakers color.

Many fans were calling to bring back the blue Hardwood Classic jerseys that were an alternate in 2002-2003. Undoubtedly those jerseys would have been nice to see brought back, but at least Shaq’s jersey has some new features that make it different.

Perhaps the best option would have been the alternate blue jersey with Crenshaw on the front to represent the fallen Los Angeles native and legendary rapper, Nipsey Hussle. Yet this would have been hard to pull off as a part of the “Lakers Lore” collection that is solely based off of the Lakers’ past great players.

With three finals MVPs under his belt, while playing for the Lakers, Shaq has earned the right to put together whatever jersey he wants.

If fans expected Shaq to put together a boring jersey that had been seen before, they obviously did not watch him on or off the court during his legendary career.