By Matt Mueller Culture Editor Published Oct 24, 2023 at 5:56 PM Photography: Twitter/@sportstalkwisco

With Dame Lillard in and Jrue Holiday out, it's a new-look Milwaukee Bucks taking the court this 2023-24 season. That includes the team's alternate jerseys too, as a leak has revealed the Bucks' latest City Edition uniform for the upcoming year. 

Originally tweeted out by @brandon1an and confirmed as legitimate by global uniform experts at SportsLogos.net, a leaked list of all the NBA City Edition jerseys – one of the alternates worn multiple times throughout the season, meant as creative homages to each team's particular city – made its way to the internet. That sneak peek included the Bucks' new look for the 2023-24 slate – albeit not all that crazily new as, for the second straight season, Milwaukee will wear blue as one of its alternate jerseys. (Sorry, Cream City fans; apparently they're still not allowed.)

Themed once again around "Gathering Place," the new City Edition uniform returns to blue as its main color – as it was in Milwaukee's championship season in 2020-21 and last year. This time, however, the City Edition jersey features a swooping cream stripe across the front and streaking down the side – either as a tribute to the shape of Fiserv Forum or perhaps to the city's lakefront and rivers. (SportsLogos.net argues it's a nod to the Hoan Bridge which ... hm, if you say so!) The uniform also features green piping around the neck and arm holes, as well as an unique splash texture that, similar to 2020-21's wavy blue set, may mean to represent the nearby lake and rivers. 

As it stands, barring any new changes or unreported alterations for the upcoming year, the Bucks now have their slate of uniforms for the 2023-24 season – complete with their white Association Edition home jerseys, green Icon Edition road look, black "Fear The Deer" Statement Edition alternates and purple Classic Edition throwbacks. 

Bucks 2023-24 uniformsX

This may be a controversial opinion – but I say mark this down as another preseason victory for the Bucks! I know the blue alternates are divisive amongst fans since they seem like such a departure from the usual look (never mind that blue is a small but present part of their standard uniforms) but what is the City Edition for if not for bold fun splashes of flavor. And while it's not reinventing much from last year's look, the blue color pops while the swooping cream stripe adds some nice variety and motion to the new uniform set. The only concerns I have are the bright tone of the green piping and the texturing – but we'll see how those look in person and in action. Otherwise, I say it's in the top tier of this year's City Editions. 

Which admittedly isn't saying much because the rest of them are pretty Packers/Broncos game-level hideous. 

Say what you will about the Bucks City Edition look: At least it has color. Most of these new alternates are boring variations of overdone black or dark hues of grey or blue; even more of them look like the designers had no new ideas and just threw a dart at a wall of random fonts. The Brooklyn Nets look like a dog food company. Miami's "Heat Culture" alts look like they'd be sold by a sketchy vendor outside the stadium next to jerseys with misspelled words and names to avoid legal trouble. The Minnesota Timberwolves look like the fake uniform they'd wear in a bottled water ad. In fact, the whole 2023-24 set of City Editions look like the fake teams created for a video game or movie that didn't get the licensing to the real deal. It's like they handed the whole thing over to "Blitz: The League."

The sad state of it all is enough to make you wonder what's the point of this whole alternate jersey rigamarole – besides the obvious reason of "making the NBA's eyeballs turn into cartoon ka-ching dollar signs." Let's just rotate the already established batches from the past several seasons until Nike comes up with some actual new ideas. 

Winning can make anything look good, though, so we'll see which ones stick and which ones need to get stuck in the garbage disposal when we see them on the move on the court. An official team uniform reveal hasn't been made yet – typically complete with when Milwaukee's City Editions will make their debut – but we do know when the Bucks themselves will make their grand on-court 2023-24 entrance: Thursday night at Fiserv Forum against the Philadelphia 76ers.

For more info about the Bucks, click here – and stay tuned to OnMilwaukee for more news, updates and official uniform reveals to come this exciting new Bucks season.

Matt Mueller Culture Editor

As much as it is a gigantic cliché to say that one has always had a passion for film, Matt Mueller has always had a passion for film. Whether it was bringing in the latest movie reviews for his first grade show-and-tell or writing film reviews for the St. Norbert College Times as a high school student, Matt is way too obsessed with movies for his own good.

When he's not writing about the latest blockbuster or talking much too glowingly about "Piranha 3D," Matt can probably be found watching literally any sport (minus cricket) or working at - get this - a local movie theater. Or watching a movie. Yeah, he's probably watching a movie.