Lakers Announce New Unis Coming Soon; Immediately Leaked

The Los Angeles Lakers are going to look a little different on the court this season, and it’s not just because they signed Rajon Rondo (and, I guess, that other guy)

Via a Tweet from WKYC NBC Cleveland digital producer Ben Axelrod, we’ve learned that the Lakers will also be getting a new uniform set for the 2018-19 season; Axelrod learned of the new look after receiving an email advertisement from Fanatics encouraging folks to pre-order now.

So apparently the Lakers are getting a new uniform design. How convenient. pic.twitter.com/36m1S2cDNi
— Ben Axelrod (@BenAxelrod) July 7, 2018

The link takes you to this page which gives you the option of ordering one of four different items, all of which are accompanied with a “COMING SOON” graphic.

According to our sources we’ve learned the Lakers will have new looks for all their uniforms, the changes will include the wordmark (probably just a slight tweaking), the name/number font, and possibly even striping on the sides of the jersey. The team will still have gold, purple, and white options as their Association, Icon, and Statement uniforms.

Our NBA guy Conrad Burry took a few educated guesses earlier today as to what we could see for a new Lakers uniform:

With the upcoming redesign of the Lakers Icon Edition uni, here's a go at concept/prediction mockups. The wordmark+number combo is from the recent Nike practice unis that the 2018 draft prospects worked out in (h/t @niewiadomski51 for the observation). Which do prefer? [1/2] pic.twitter.com/Jfyo7zPqaU
— Conrad Burry 🔴🐐🎨 (@conradburry) July 7, 2018

And here's 4 more concept/prediction variations of coloring + design application for the upcoming Lakers Icon Edition uniform. [2/2] pic.twitter.com/fqkwdWgDrm
— Conrad Burry 🔴🐐🎨 (@conradburry) July 7, 2018

The last noticeable design change to a Los Angeles Lakers uniform came in 1999 when the club eliminated the drop shadow from numbers (changing the colour completely on their golds) and added stripes to both the golds and purples.

Stay tuned, the Lakers are expected to unveil their new uniforms on July 30th. You can pre-order the new Lakers jersey here.

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UPDATE (Jul 7/18 8:20pm ET): Welp, it appears they’ve already been leaked. Our good friend Mr. Burry spotted a LeBron James beach towel for sale on an eBay auction which showed James mocked up in a Lakers uniform with new drop shadow numbers, no striping on the sides, and an updated sleeve trim. Take a look:

🤔 Not sure if legit or just a temporary jersey switch graphic… (h/t @hdotdiga for the find). Gonna mock up the Icon jersey…stand by. pic.twitter.com/Y6MH5yx4DZ
— Conrad Burry 🔴🐐🎨 (@conradburry) July 7, 2018

Further research found additional items on eBay showing James with the Lakers for sale, a pennant which featured the same photo as above and a lanyard which gave us clues to the jersey letter and number style on the purple and gold versions of this new set:

As you can see from the items above: white jersey = purple numbers, gold drop; gold jersey = purple numbers, white drop; purple jersey = gold numbers, white drop.

These images most definitely appear to be sample graphics from a distributor of licensed goods, the name of which I’ll withhold as it’s both A) irrelevant to what we actually care about here (all you need to know is they’re big and wouldn’t design something inaccurate like this) and B) to prevent anyone there from getting in any hot water over this.

Based on that, I’m confident in calling this a legit leak of the new Lakers uniforms.