Nike's first year as the NBA's official jersey suppliers has been bumpy so far. Between ripped jerseys and some questionable designs, people have had a lot of complaints. Those complaints continued on Christmas Day, when NBA Twitter got wind of the fact that teams don't have special Christmas Day jerseys. Adidas' looks became well-known, often involving script lettering of the team names, and the festive jerseys were missed this year.
Some media personalities were questioning Nike's preparedness for its first season.
Really hard to understand how Nike was seemingly so unprepared for their first NBA season. Jersey tears on the court, supply chain issues with fan jerseys, no special XMas jerseys.
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) December 25, 2017
Other people were less concerned with the logisitics.
This no Christmas Day jersey thing is absolute trash.
— Meredith Minkow (@murrminks) December 25, 2017
No Christmas Day jerseys 🤦🏽♂️ smh what are y’all doing @NBA @Nike
— DJ Kearney (@_D_V_K_) December 25, 2017
Nike wanna come out with all these jersey variants but no Christmas Day uni’s?!?!
— You Tell Me (@TezzyLePew) December 25, 2017
How is there no special Christmas Day jerseys for the NBA. You’re really sucking your first year @Nike
— Elaina (@ElainaRaquel) December 25, 2017
Still others understood the likely reason why, but simply didn't care.
How can Nike not do Christmas Day uniforms?! Who cares if they don't sell like hotcakes. Seeing the new designs & comparing to past years was one of my favorite things
— Nicholas LeTourneau (@nick_lt) December 25, 2017
But the dominant emotion was definitely some kind of anger.
THERE'S NO SPECIAL CHRISTMAS JERSEYS THIS YEAR AND WYD NIKE I'M EXTREMELY MAD ONLINE
— Tim Cato (@tim_cato) December 25, 2017
Nike's first NBA year and no special Christmas jerseys?!? pic.twitter.com/Z5DhuWjQX2
— Risky (@RiskyRoss22) December 25, 2017
People have been upset with Nike all year, for a myriad of reasons. Jerseys have been getting ripped in games and leaked through video games (the latter of which is especially hilarious), and people seem pretty disillusioned with The Swoosh.
However, it's Nike's first year. They definitely have time to pull it together, and although you can't take back a bad start, you can make it better. Christmas jerseys are probably way below "our jerseys are inexplicably tearing" on Nike's list of priorities, so all that there is to do now is be patient and be mad online.