St. Patrick’s Day is here, with eight games being played around the NBA, and one noticeable difference continues for yet another year — no holiday-themed uniforms.
During the league’s uniform partnership with Adidas, a select group of teams each year would wear special green uniforms on St. Patrick’s Day. The Chicago Bulls, New York Knicks and Boston Celtics were frequent participants and jump-started the trend in the mid-2000s.
However, similar to special Christmas Day threads, the initiative ended when Nike became the NBA’s uniform supplier ahead of the 2017-18 season and introduced the current “Edition” system for uniforms. As a result, more emphasis went toward the yearly City Edition program rather than one-off holiday uniforms. The NBA and WNBA agreed to a 12-year contract extension with Nike in 2024.
In the absence of festive threads for this season, here’s a look back at notable St. Patrick’s Day jerseys of the past.
New York Knicks
How lucky was the look? 3-3 overall record in St. Patrick’s Day uniforms
New York went deep into its uniform closet each St. Patrick’s Day with an all-green look that included orange and black trims throughout. The Knicks debuted the threads against the Detroit Pistons on March 17, 2006, and it brought them good luck.
Led by 18 points off the bench from Jamal Crawford, the Knicks defeated the Eastern Conference-leading Pistons 105-103.
New York last wore the green threads during the 2011-12 season, a win against the Indiana Pacers.
Chicago Bulls
How lucky was the look? 4-6 overall record in St. Patrick’s Day uniforms
The Bulls went from red to green for a look that surely took some getting used to for die-hard fans. Even though the uniform was all green, the bull logo on the shorts and back of the jersey remained the traditional black and red.
Chicago first wore the threads against the Miami Heat in an 85-84 loss on March 18, 2006, a day after the holiday. The Bulls wore the uniform each year until the 2016-17 campaign except in 2015-16.
Boston Celtics
How lucky was the look? 4-4 overall record in St. Patrick’s Day uniforms
Green is already the Celtics’ primary shade, but even they received a neat makeover ahead of St. Patrick’s Day 2006. The numbers and “Celtics” word mark were turned gold with a similar color trim across the shorts and jersey. They uniform set received a slight tweak for the 2013-14 season with a short-sleeve version.
Like Chicago, Boston donned the special look until the 2017-18 campaign.
How lucky was the look? 1-4 overall record in St. Patrick’s Day uniforms
Toronto entered the holiday trend on St. Patrick’s Day 2008, debuting a clean look in a road defeat against the Utah Jazz. The Raptors continued to wear it for the next four seasons.
Their only victory came when Chris Bosh made the winning jump shot with two seconds left against the Atlanta Hawks in 2010, his final season in Toronto.
