On Tuesday, the Philadelphia 76ers unveiled their latest City Edition uniform for the 2020-21 season.
This season’s uniform focuses on Philadelphia’s Boathouse Row, a national landmark along the Schuylkill River. In 1979, each boathouse was lined with lights, giving them a nightly Christmas-like gingerbread house appearance and reflecting in the river.
In collaboration with 76ers All-Star Ben Simmons, who requested that the team bring back a black uniform in his rookie season, the new uniform returns the Sixers to black for the first time since the Iverson era. Team president Chris Heck offered Simmons a deal shortly after his request that if he were to win the Rookie of the Year award, he’d be included in the design process of the new uniform. Simmons won the award after the season and began working with the team on the new threads.
“Growing up in Australia, I always associated the 76ers with the black uniform that Allen Iverson wore in the early 2000s. I’m a lover of both fashion and basketball, so to combine the two and be part of the design process for the first black 76ers uniform in over a decade was amazing,” Simmons said. “I’m grateful the team included me from the jump and can’t wait to wear this jersey next season.”
As the 76ers’ first black uniform since 2008-09, the uniform features the lit up Boathouse Row in white on the front and back with the reflection appearing underneath in glossy black. The uniform is trimmed with red and blue from top to bottom. “Philadelphia” is stitched beneath the Boathouse Row design on the front and on the back is the player’s last name. The player’s number is stitched above the boathouses on both the front and back. The new numbers were designed to complement the bicentennial-inspired “76” logo on the shorts. On the waistband of the shorts is a Liberty Bell logo, while somewhat hidden behind the flap of the shorts is a severed snake, taken from Benjamin Franklin’s “Join or Die” cartoon from 1754.
As seen on social media, many noticed what looked to be the letters “TTP” drawn in the boathouses (seen above the letter “D” in Philadelphia), standing for the 76ers’ motto of recent years “Trust The Process”.
