Are the Sixers planning to unveil throwback jerseys?

Ever since Nike took over the rights to produce NBA jerseys (the deal between Nike and the NBA was actually made in 2015, it just didn’t go into effect until the 2017-18 season), NBA fans have been able to expect new look uniforms each season. Some of them have been beautiful, some of them have been ugly, but they’ve all been refreshing, innovative and exciting in this writer’s humble opinion.

While new uniforms for the 2019-20 season have yet to be introduced, the Sixers have dropped hints about their design direction. On Tuesday afternoon, the team’s Twitter account tweeted out the following short clip:

The video has a nostalgic 70’s vibe and the caption indicates something will happen on August 1st. So why is there reason to believe it’s a retro jersey reveal? Well team president Chris Heck tweeted out the following image back on July 4th:

Heck tags Paul Lukas (@UniWatch), who writes about “what the players wear” for Sports Illustrated, and the image is taken from a (as far as I can tell) short-lived jersey donned by Sixers players back in the 70’s. Here’s a photo of Sixers legend Billy Cunningham rocking it:

I’m a sucker for throwback jerseys and really anything that falls into the category of “retro”. These particular unis aren’t the sexiest, and the “Seventy” almost looks like it was added last second, like on the way out of the manufacturing facility someone said “Oh wait, we forgot something, here’s a sharpie!” But I do love the overall simplicity and cleanliness of the design. And of course, if this is the inspiration for a new Sixers jersey, it’s just that: an inspiration. The designers could come up with something that’s only tangentially related to what we see on Cunningham.

Two more days ‘til the reveal!