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With the Nike World Basketball Festival and the FIBA World Cup coming up in the next month, Nike revealed the new uniforms for Team USA Basketball on Friday. Stars like Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Paul George, Kyrie Irving, James Harden, and others will be donning the home and away uniforms pictured above and below as they try to win the international tournament in Spain.
Nike unveiled the Hyper Elite uniforms with the following statement:
As Nike World Basketball Festival and the FIBA Basketball World Cup approach, Nike proudly introduces the new USA Basketball uniform, the brand’s lightest uniform in history.
Infusing design innovation to maximize player performance, the Nike Hyper Elite uniform takes inspirational elements specific to the USA and Nike’s heritage to provide the team with a kit that tells a story.
The angle of USA graphic on the new uniform was inspired by the chevron of the classic Nike Windrunner track jacket that was born in 1978.
Both the USA home and away uniforms feature red, white and blue hues meshed together in the 26-degree speed graphic – crossing the front of the game jersey, fading into a representation of the USA flag, and extending across the side of the game short from the front to the back. The speed graphic represents a distinctive basketball point of view, based on the roughly 1,000 directional changes, or "cuts" that a player might make in the course of a game.
They advertise the uniforms as "ultra-lightweight" with lining on the inside that is supposed to help the athletes wipe away sweat and moisture from their face. The mesh materials have various vents all over the kits to help regulat temperature. The home version of the uniforms are pictured below:
The Nike World Basketball Festival will take place in Chicago from August 13 to 17, and the FIBA World Cup begins August 30 in Spain. This was previously branded as the FIBA World Championships four years ago when it took place in Turkey. Team USA was led to a 9-0 record by tournament MVP Kevin Durant. He led the entire tournament in scoring and the US beat Turkey in the gold medal game.
