It's only June, and we've already gotten our first look at the rumored Boston Celtics "City Edition" jersey for the 2025-26 season. On Saturday evening, Proline Mockups, a Twitter account dedicated to showcasing professional sports uniforms, put together a thread of the yearly alternates for all 30 NBA franchises (we're at 21 designs, as of 10:15 a.m. ET on Sunday).
Here is what Boston's is supposedly going to look like:
The jersey will have a white base filled with accented designs of the Celtics' parquet court. The lettering and number will be gold with a black outline, and the sides of the torso will have a three-color stripe of gold, black, and white. There will also be gold trim around the neck and armholes.
In the thread, Proline Mockups said that this design may not be 100% accurate. So, it could wind up looking a little different, but by all accounts, gold lettering is going to be a part of the scheme. Celtics superfan GreenRunsDeep had replied on an earlier thread asking if the "white with gold lettering" design he'd heard about was real.
Oh, you'd like me to give a grade for the leaked Celtics City Edition?
This jersey concept isn't the worst, I'll give it that. To be honest, it would've been pretty difficult for Nike to design something worse than what they gave the Celtics last season. The "Action Green" uniforms were putrid, and I'm almost positive that they had something to do with the way Boston's season ended.
I think it's perfectly normal for Celtics fans to be excited about this leak, solely because of how badly they were beaten down with those disgusting neon kits.
With that being said, I don't LOVE them. The idea is cool but the concept of a Celtics jersey without ANY green is pretty wild. I actually think if Nike had just replaced the black accents with green then these would be one of the best alternates Boston has ever had.
Instead, they missed the mark, again, by trying to be TOO different or creative.
I'm sure when the official release happens, there's going to be some explanation of why each color was chosen like there is every year. Sometimes, the explanation will sway some of the fanbase in the "Ohhhh, I get it now" sort of way.
In my opinion, designs should be held to the same standards as jokes. If you've got to explain a joke to someone in order for it to be funny, then it's not really all that funny. If you need to tell me why the jersey looks cool, then it doesn't look all that cool.
These get a C+ from me.
I don't hate them by any means and have come around a bit on them since last night when I first saw the leak. Missing on the green accents is just too gut-wrenching for me to give it a grade that's any higher.
It doesn't help that the thread consisted of other leaks where teams around the association are just "playing the hits" next year. For example, the Miami Heat are rolling out the black "Vice" jerseys again.
I had talked myself into the idea of the Celtics bringing back the white, yellow, and green jerseys from the 2018-19 season, and was of course disappointed when that wasn't the case.
However, I'm still holding out hope that the official final design actually does have some green mixed in there. If that's the case, I will have to reevaluate and give a new grade.
