Trail Blazers Unveil New Damian Lillard-Directed “Statement” Uniform

Damian Lillard has a few impressive items on his résumé: Olympic gold medallist, six-time NBA All-Star, rookie of the year, member of the NBA’s 75th anniversary team, hip hop artist, and now… art director.

This past weekend, the Portland Trail Blazers unveiled their new red Statement Edition uniform, with art direction from their starting point guard. Somehow, it’s the first one in team history to feature the club’s long-used pinwheel logo in the starring role.

“From the jump, I told the designers I wanted to feature our pinwheel logo,” Lillard said in a video released by the Trail Blazers. “Not only did I think it would look good, but it actually represents something that I’m all about, something that the Blazers are all about: teamwork and unity … That’s where we started, by honouring the teamwork, unity, and history represented by that iconic design.”

The Trail Blazers logo, in use since their expansion season back in 1970 with a few modernizations along the way, shows five lines spiralling towards five other lines, representing two teams of five meeting together at centre court at the start of a basketball game. It’s a design concept that would never fly today, which is a shame — the late ’60s and early ’70s were peak periods in logo design.

To the lower left of the black-pinwheel logo is the player’s number in white with black trim. Down each side of the jersey are thick black stripes with red diagonal lines from the armpit to the knee – another reference to the pinwheel logo. The waistband of the shorts shows the “ripcity” wordmark logo in black, and the player’s name on the back is white and arched above the number, which is, like the front, white with black trim.

“We started talking about other design accents,” Lillard continued. “The designers were testing out a bunch of ideas. I figured I’d add some simple touches to get it just right, like locking in my favourite colour, red. Luckily, that works pretty well here in Portland. I wanted to keep the lines clean and have a super minimalistic but modern feel, but it needed a little extra down the side. So we put pinwheel hash marks on it to tie it all together.”

“The Portland Trail Blazers Statement Edition uniform is inspired by the players’ team-first mindset and is designed to make a bold statement on the hardwood,” reads the team’s official website. “The specific theme of ‘teamwork’ is represented in the meaning behind our ‘Pinwheel’ logo, which was originally designed to represent two teams of five coming together at center court in competition.”

This new Portland Trail Blazers Statement Edition replaces the previous design, which had been in use (with several significant evolutionary tweaks along the way) since waaaaay back in 2002 when it was still known as an “alternate uniform” (the old days, kids!) The most recent version of the Blazers’ Statement Edition uniform was implemented in 2019. It was a red uniform with “PORTLAND” across the chest and five diagonal grey lines running below it from armpit to hip.