The Raptors are going to wear an alternate uniform inspired by Drake and OVO next season. At least, we think that they're going to wear one, based on a bunch of information that has come out over the course of the last 24 hours (and to a larger degree, the last six months or so). It's still unclear exactly what the "Drake" alternate unis will look like, but it certainly sounds like they're going to make an appearance at least one or two times when the Raptors take the court next season.
We first heard about the idea of the Raptors x Drake x OVO alternate uniforms all the way back in December when Sports Illustrated reported that Toronto was going to use a new logo for the 2015-16 NBA season. In addition to showing off the new primary logo, the Raptors also revealed a Drake and OVO-inspired alternate logo done up in black and gold. The new Raptors logos are going to look like this:
1.
At the time, the Raptors didn't say that they were going to release a Drake x OVO alternate uniform in addition to the logo. But a lot of people naturally assumed that it was going to happen. The website SportsLogos.net even created a bunch of mockups for "possible new Toronto Raptors uniforms" for the 2015-16 season. Those mockups were not official. But they did showcase what the Raptors' new logos might look like on their home and road uniforms as well as on their alternate and "Drake" alternate uniforms. SportsLogos.net creator Chris Creamer mocked them up himself:
2.
Fast forward to yesterday. The website Uni-Watch released photos of some of the Christmas Day uniforms that are going to be worn by NBA teams next season. Uni-Watch creator Paul Lukas also wrote a short piece for ESPN.com about the new uniforms. That led to someone posting a link on SportsLogos.net that featured pages from a new adidas catalog that includes photos of a few of the NBA uniforms that are going to be worn next season. And somehow, that led to SportsLogos.net's mockup of the Raptors' "Drake" alternate uniforms getting posted everywhere as if that had been a part of the Uni-Watch/ESPN.com report. See here, here, and here.
With all of this in mind, we were skeptical about the "Drake" alternate uniform to say the least. It hadn't made an appearance on Uni-Watch, which is a trusted source for NBA-related uniform news. And the photo that many blogs were using was the same photo that SportsLogos.net had posted months ago.
So we reached out to the Raptors to try and get to the bottom of it, and they didn't respond. We also reached out to OVO to ask about the alternate uniforms, and they chose not to comment. And then, finally (finally!), SportsLogos.net creator Chris Creamer—the same guy who created the original Raptors mockup uniforms—put up a post earlier today and revealed that he actually saw all of the Raptors uniforms for next season last week. He admitted that he wasn't particularly impressed with any of them—"They're not exciting," he wrote—but he also admitted that the real uniforms are close to the mockups that he posted in February. They look like this and, yes, they do include a "Drake" alternate:
3.
As of right now, we don't have any other information on the uniforms. We don't know when they'll be worn, if they'll be available to the public, or what role Drake played in creating them. But it seems as though the "Drake" alternate uniforms that everyone has been talking about will be coming out. Stay tuned for further details.
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