Ranking the 2019 NBA draft day hats — you know what? Never mind
With the 2019 NBA draft only a week away, New Era has unveiled the hats that will perch on top of each pick’s head after his name is announced by commissioner Adam Silver at the Barclays Center in New York.
Unlike NFL teams, which tend to go absolutely nuts with the design of their draft-day caps, their NBA counterparts are keeping things simple. The caps are designed to resemble varsity jackets and include a custom patch with the team name, a pin featuring the team’s logo, team-specific striping and embroidered team information.
In other words, they’re all same, just with different colors, logo pins, etc. depending on the team.
Sign up for our daily sports newsletter »
Last year’s NBA draft hats were all similar in nature, with bold versions of the teams’ logos on the front. But a little pizzazz was added by pins that featured an image, slogan or nickname associated with the location or franchise (the Clippers’ pin featured a California vanity plate that said “GOCLIPS”; the Lakers’ pin was in the likeness of purple sunglasses).
But this year the league is keeping things much more low-key. You can check out the Lakers’ headgear at the top of the page. And here’s the Clippers’.
New Orleans Pelicans fans are probably already imagining how Zion Williamson is going to look in this sucker:
And fans in Toronto and the Bay Area can probably picture themselves celebrating an NBA title in one of these bad boys:
As you can see, they’re not bad-looking hats at all. They’re actually quite classy and stylish.
Really the only people who might have a problem with them are writers who were really looking forward to ranking the caps from snazziest to most hideous (what can I say — we love ranking things).
If you want to know what your team’s hat looks like (and somehow can’t already picture it given these examples) or if you want to purchase one (much more likely), check out the New Era 2019 NBA Authentics: Draft Series at neweracap.com.
Twitter: @chewkiii
Get our high school sports newsletter
Prep Rally is devoted to the SoCal high school sports experience, bringing you scores, stories and a behind-the-scenes look at what makes prep sports so popular.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
