Hornets Unveil Uniform Schedule for 2017-18

The National Basketball Association announced earlier this year that the league would be doing away with the idea of a home, a road, and an alternate uniform; instead each team would have either four or five uniforms and they could just wear whatever they want whenever they want, as long as it doesn’t look too similar to the opponent.

We could see a lot of colour vs colour matchups this year.

Because of this each team is required to set their uniform schedules in advance to allow teams to ensure there will be no matchups in which both teams are wearing the same colour. The Minnesota Timberwolves recently made their home uniform schedule public, the Charlotte Hornets however are the only team to have made their entire schedule available, giving us an idea how often certain uniforms will be worn throughout the season.

What we learned is Charlotte will be predominantly teal in 2017-18, it’s the uniform they’ll wear most both at home and on the road. White, typically worn for a large percentage of home games since forever, will only be worn for 11 of the Hornets 41 home dates in the upcoming season.

The Hornets have a fifth uniform they’ve yet to announce, it’s shown here as “City” as that’s the name the league and/or Nike has assigned to it throughout the NBA.

A look at the uniform breakdown by game and venue:

HOME
Teal (13): Oct 20, 27. Nov 1, 18, 22. Dec 8, 15, 20. Jan 20, 24. Feb 2. Mar 8, 22.
White (11): Oct 25, 29. Nov 20. Dec 4, 18. Jan 1, 17, 22. Feb 27. Mar 6, 26.
Purple (8): Nov 25. Dec 6, 9, 16. Feb 11, 25. Apr 1, 8.
Retro (3): Nov 15. Dec 23. Jan 13.
City (6): Dec 27. Jan 12, 26. Feb 22. Mar 10, 28.

ROAD
Teal (15): Oct 18, 23, 30. Nov 3, 7, 10, 24. Dec 29. Jan 2, 27, 29. Mar 2, 31. Apr 3, 6.
White (12): Nov 5, 17. Dec 1, 31. Jan 5. Feb 8, 9. Mar 4, 17, 19, 21, 24.
Purple (10): Nov 29. Dec 11, 22. Jan 15. Feb 4, 5, 28. Mar 13, 15. Apr 10.
Retro (1): Dec 13.
City (3): Jan 31. Feb 14, 23.

Charlotte is one of eight teams in the league to use five uniforms, clubs were given the option to add a fifth “Classic” option.

Here’s a breakdown in a handy pie chart to show you how often each uniform will be worn. “City” is shown in black in the chart below however we don’t know what its colour will actually be:

OVERALL
Teal: 28 (34%)
White: 23 (28%)
Purple: 18 (22%)
Retro: 4 (5%)
City: 9 (11%)

While the rise of alternate uniforms in recent years had reduced the use of white it had still hovered around the 50% mark, it barely cracks one-quarter for the Hornets this year. If you combine the two teal uniforms, Charlotte will wear it in 32 of their 82 games (39%).