The Utah Jazz have stopped selling a shirt that featured Michael Jordan’s famed “Jumpman” silhouette flying over the name of the team he twice beat in the NBA Finals.
But not before the image dredged up bad memories for some longtime fans.
As he browsed the team store ahead of the team’s first preseason home game over the weekend, Jazz fan Laird Doman found a shirt with the Jordan Brand’s “Jumpman” logo situated above the Utah Jazz’s wordmark.
The NBA has a partnership with the Jordan Brand and the iconic “Jumpman” logo is featured on some jerseys, including the Jazz’s black Statement jersey. The Utah Jazz T-shirt in question was derived from a league-wide design; there are essentially identical shirts for other teams in the NBA.
But that didn’t stop an outcry from Jazz fans.
In the John Stockton and Karl Malone-fueled heyday of the Jazz franchise in the 1990s, Jordan and his Chicago Bulls were the team’s biggest rival. In the end, Jordan’s Bulls won two NBA Finals over the Jazz — wins frequently seen as the former’s greatest accomplishments as memorialized in the award-winning documentary series “The Last Dance.”
Those days are also seen as the toughest time for some Jazz fans, to come so close to championship glory without winning it all. So upon seeing this shirt in the Jazz’s own team store — even 25 years later — there were some strong reactions.
This is an absolute travesty. Some of us cried that day.
— Michael Beau Anderson (@mbeauanderson) October 15, 2023
The shirt, however, only made an appearance in the Jazz team store for a short time. A Jazz spokesperson confirmed the team has pulled the shirt off the shelves after the backlash.
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