The 4 worst Mavericks Jerseys you can buy right now

The internet is awash in listicles and opinion pieces offering advice on how to best normalize your work-from-home situation.

“Designate a separate space where you can work,” they say. “Get dressed every morning, just like you normally would,” they say. There is a critical mass building towards re-establishing a standardized routine. The market is zigging. It’s time to zag. How best to do that as a Mavs fan? Well, here is a curated selection of jerseys that will have you feeling uneasy and tenuous about your place in the world for as long as you’re wearing it - a feeling we should all embrace.

4. Our Current Home Jersey

An easy place to start. Our current home kit feels like a living contradiction in all the wrong ways. It’s bizarrely busy while also too plain. Outdated while trying to feel modern. The font is doing it no favors, and its only non-white colors are 2 different shades of blue.

It was the first rebrand the Mavericks underwent as a team after Mark Cuban bought the franchise as a hot, young billionaire, and it felt like a fresh break from the Mavericks’ teams of the past who had failed to find much in the way of sustained success. They needed a facelift and they got it. It’s a jersey that has served us well. We won the ‘ship in this jersey! And yet...

Well, now Mark is just a regular, 61-year-old billionaire, and these are still officially our home jerseys. You could be forgiven for forgetting about them — they’ve almost been unofficially retired due to all the jersey variations Nike pumps in to the market now. A new “City” and “Statement” edition jersey every year. Never mind the skyline alternate jersey the team seems to wear more often than our actual home or away jersey. There are so many jersey variants, which ones are the “official” jersey is almost an afterthought these days.

It’s past time to let these go. No one should buy these anymore. Buying the official home jersey at this point is like buying a 27 inch CRT TV in 2010 — and not for cool reasons like playing retro game consoles with no input lag, but because you stubbornly refuse to just buy a flatscreen that doesn’t require two people to move up a flight of stairs.

3. Mitchell and Ness Team Heritage Fashion Jersey

First and foremost, the question must be asked: is this even a jersey? What makes a jersey a jersey? They call this a jersey, but the team has never worn it. It has no numbers on the front or back. When does a jersey stop being a jersey and just become a regular tank top?

Nomenclature aside, It clearly draws inspiration from the Mavericks’ old solid green jersey, but then took some creative license and just decided to spice it up a little for… reasons. Those reasons? Well, I suppose you can only sell a person so many actual retro jerseys. The Mavericks aren’t a very old team. They’ve only really have one set of throwbacks they can throw back to. But when has actual history ever stopped anyone from trying to sell a thing?

Aesthetically, these are not that offensive. But on principle, they’re a pointless abstraction. We already have official jerseys that emerged from an alternate Mavs timeline, and it’s the 2019 City Edition jersey, aka “Graffiti” jersey, which rules. I actually like most of the Mitchell and Ness apparel, but why wear a fake green jersey when you can just buy the actual green jersey?

2. Adidas Swingman “Static” Youth Jersey

When I came across this jersey in my research for this piece, I was initially confused. What is this? Why is it here? Who was this for? But as I tried to find more information on the jersey, I kept coming across listings for it, and it seems that it was only ever sold as a youth-sized jersey. Then it hit me: this is a Kenner Batman jersey.

You see, Batman became a hot property in the early 90s following the Tim Burton movie and animated show worked to revive the character after the painfully kitschy television series from the 60s had run its course. So what do you do when you have a popular comic book character appearing in TV and the movies? You make action figures! But what if that character only really has one look and it’s all black and this is supposed to be for kids? You invent more costumes!

Look at these beauties. A whole host of wacky costumes, colors and themed Batmen. Each one is a precious gem of 90s comic memorabilia. Arctic Batman? High-Wire Batman? Buccaneer Batman? And those are just a few! Did Batman actually ever look like any of these figures in the comic books or movies? No. Does that matter to a child? Emphatically no. I’m 100% certain I have an Artic Batman in a box somewhere as we speak.

So, that’s what this jersey is. Is it an ugly, unrepresentative characterization of who this team was during this era? Clearly, yes. Does that matter to a child? Again, absolutely not. But if you are an adult, you should not wear this. Because I don’t think it would fit you, but also, just get a normal jersey.

1: Nike “Salute to Service” Jersey

What did the troops do to deserve this? Did the troops ask for this? Do the troops, in their leisure time, yearn for an opportunity to wear more drab, olive green? Stop trying to make the troops wear ugly clothes!

San Antonio, home to no fewer than 4 military bases, has gone further than any other team in their effort to “support the troops” vis a vis ugly basketball jerseys. So far, in fact, that they actually wear these things when they’re on the court, playing basketball as professional athletes. At least the Mavericks haven’t gone that far, mercifully keeping these eyesores far, far away from the actual hardwood.

Instead, the team hosts its annual Seats for Soldiers night every year, and on those nights they give fans who serve in the military something they might actually want. No, not horrible jersey color combinations. They win basketball games. The Mavericks have gone 13-2 on Seats for Soldiers night. I say, let that be where the team’s support for the services end, and throw all remaining “Salute to Service” jerseys into the same giant landfill where they buried all of those Atari “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” video games no one wanted.