During an early season matchup with the New York Knicks, the Cleveland Cavaliers premiered a new alternate jersey, a black sleeved top with the team’s signature sharp-edged “C” emblazoned across the front. It was a great look for the team, and a somewhat menacing one—fitting, considering LeBron James is the league’s signature man-child—but LBJ wasn’t a fan. He started the game with a terrible shooting performance, and got so frustrated with the sleeves midway through the 2nd quarter, he exasperatingly ripped them off and gave us one of the most bizarre NBA Vines in recent memory.
However, for whatever reason, it was James’ idea to have the Cavs wear them last night as they set out to complete an incredibly daunting task, even considering Draymond Green‘s absence: Stifle the Splash Brothers, and send the NBA Finals back home to Cleveland for a Game 6. That’s exactly what the Cavs did, thanks to a historic set of performances by James and Kyrie Irving, who became the first ever duo to score at least 40 points each in a Finals game.
Despite the outcome of the game, it was still weird that LeBron personally requested that the Cavs wear that jersey. For such a paramount game and career moment, you’d imagine someone under such scrutiny would do everything in his power to give himself the best possible chance to win. Apparently, that meant wearing those detested sleeves last night.
J.R. Smith was able to provide some insight to Cavs beat writer Chris Haynes last night.
LeBron James made call to wear black sleeved jerseys, I’m told. J.R. Smith says that jersey symbolizes pride. #Cavs were prideful tonight.
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) June 14, 2016
Maybe there’s something to be said about those jerseys being more menacing than the team’s other threads. Whatever it was, we wouldn’t be surprised to see them hanging in the locker room prior to Game 7 in Golden State should Cleveland hold court on Thursday.
