The Houston Rockets and Minnesota Timberwolves both unveiled new uniforms earlier this month that are heavily inspired by the designs they wore in the early 1990s but also included details from other eras.

The Rockets leaned back into the classic “ketchup and mustard” color scheme and slanted workmark that is associated with back-to-back championships and incorporated the pinstripes and shorts design from the sets that followed.

The Timberwolves, meanwhile, placed more emphasis on their original color scheme and uniform design with their new Association, Icon and Statement sets but added some pine trees to pays homage to arguably the most notable uniform(s) in franchise history.

With that, the staff at SportsLogos.Net – including founder Chris Creamer and contributors Andrew Lind and Glenn Cook – have decided to share our thoughts on the new designs. Similar stories followed the five NFL redesigns from this spring.

This will be a regular occurrence after any logo or uniform unveiling across the four major sports, with our initial coverage continuing to be as unbiased and informative as possible. We’d also love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Chris Creamer: “Both new looks came with an identical strategy: a greatest hits package of each team’s visual history, seemingly in an attempt to nail down a forever look. It’s the trend currently sweeping North American sports, and it does make one wonder where we go from here. Once you’ve incorporated a little bit of everything, what’s left to throw back to? 

“For Houston, the color scheme is the obvious highlight, red and yellow together again at last. The new space badge logo is a little clunky, but at least it’s not a roundel, so I’ll let them off the hook here (though why isn’t the badge pointing up? It’s a rocket!). I never thought the “R” logo needed to stick around, nor do I fully understand how it has lasted this long, but it’s now the longest-used logo in Rockets franchise history, so I suppose it’s carved out a place of its own, lack of team success be damned.

“A black alternate is fine, and the stars in the background of it are a nice touch (why not include that on the others?), though I’d still like to see a yellow set for these Rockets someday. The Dunkstronaut is a great addition and I’m glad it found its way onto the uniform itself. That should be a popular choice at retail, dare I say more popular than the main logo. As for the stripe running down the back of the black jersey? A neat idea, not a good look.

“In Minnesota, it’s again the colors doing the heavy lifting. The bright blue and Kelly green is the biggest improvement to the set, a cool, calming combination and a welcome sight in a league where no other team is currently using the pairing. Very throwback Seattle Seahawks or Vancouver Canucks, if you prefer. I do wish ‘Timberwolves’ appeared on at least one of the three uniforms and ‘Minnesota’ on another. I’m generally not a fan of abbreviated names on uniforms of any kind, though I’ll concede the Wolves have a history of doing exactly that, and history is the whole point of this exercise. My bigger complaint relates to the lack of tree trim overall. It’s the best part of the new uniforms and they’ve reduced it to a mere alternate. There’s no reason it couldn’t have been worked onto both the Icon and Association uniforms as well.”

Andrew Lind: “Both the Rockets and Timberwolves attempted to match the sentiments I shared within my recent NFL redesign series, where I mentioned a desire to see teams adopt a classic look but add modern touches that take it from a throwback uniform to something that could last forever. Where these franchises missed the mark, however, is that one tried to add too many modern details into a design that should have been simpler while the other chose the wrong era for the foundation of their rebrand. Either way, they both leave me underwhelmed. 

“For the Rockets, the red and yellow color scheme was a no-brainer. They won two titles in the color scheme and the original design lends itself well to a modern update to the wordmark and number font. But the pinstripes distract from the rest of the uniform, while the cone-shaped pants design and truncated stripes down the sides of the jerseys add even more clutter to what should be a cleaner design. Speaking of unnecessary, I won’t spend too much time on the black Statement uniform or the random red stripe down the back of the jersey. Just give us a yellow version of the Association and Icon sets.

“Meanwhile, the Timberwolves’ defining look – to me – involves the tree trim uniforms they wore from 1996-2008. It’s the most successful era in franchise history and, at the minimum, that detail should be a prominent part of every uniform in the set like it is the Statement Edition look. I also understand that ‘Wolves’ was a prominent part of their original uniforms, but I very much prefer the full team nickname and would have liked to see the road design include a ‘Minnesota’ wordmark. I do love the brighter shades of royal blue and Kelly green when compared to the slate or navy blue and neon green they’ve used in the past, though.”

Glenn Cook: “When they unveil new logos and uniforms, professional sports teams often spew a lot of marketing speak about blending eras of their histories to create something for the future. So when the Houston Rockets expressed a similar sentiment with their identity launch earlier this week, it felt like more of the same. But the Rockets have done maybe one of the best jobs I’ve seen of actually blending eras into a cohesive look.

“By retaining the Rocket ‘R’ logo and the nose cones on the shorts, reintroducing a red-and-yellow color scheme and the slanted script on the chest and working in some subtle vertical stripes, the Rockets have succeeded where so many others have failed. The only blemish might be the awkward lowercase ‘T’ in the ‘ROCKETS’ script. It feels like designers came up with many different iterations of the script and this is the one it was decided works best, but no one was 100 percent happy with it. The black alternate jersey isn’t strictly necessary, but with the pinstripes replaced by quasars and the red stripe up the back (which immediately reminded me of Manchester United’s 2008-09 home kit), it does exactly what an alternate jersey should do.

“The Minnesota Timberwolves also tried to blend eras with their new logo and jerseys, which were unveiled on Sunday. And while they might not have been quite as successful – it skews a bit too heavily toward their original 1990s look to truly check the “blended eras” box for me – it’s still a very successful refresh of their look.

“What I appreciate most about what the T-Wolves did is how much brighter everything is. It’s not just the neon green in the mix, it’s also the elimination of navy blue and the use of white as a base for the logos. Like everyone else, just give me a ton more trees in the uniform trim and I’d be a very happy camper.”

Photos courtesy of @HoustonRockets and @Timberwolves on X/Twitter.