Nobody really knew it was coming, but it's here: the Bucks have a new red third jersey for the 08/09 season. The Bucks will wear the jersey up to 15 times this year, including twice at the Bradley Center: for the home opener against Toronto on November 1 (don't expect the Raps to wear their regular road threads) and on November 29 against Cleveland.  Head over the the BC Shop to pre-order one.

There had been talk of a red jersey since the Bucks re-introduced green, white, and red as their team colors in 2006, especially last year when Yi Jianlian Mania re-oriented everyone's thinking towards pleasing the red-loving Chinese market.  Well, Yi's gone, but the jerseys are here and they look pretty decent.  I'd say both green and white work better, but red was the only part of the color scheme yet to get top billing, so that part isn't a surprise. 

More importantly, the new duds bring back the "Milwaukee" across the chest, which was always something that made the road jerseys from the '70s look so cool. In a perfect world we'd see the same treatment on the standard green road unis, but we'll have to make do with these for now. My biggest complaint is that like seemingly every team the Bucks' jerseys have that patent leathery sheen to them.  C'mon NBA, these are basketball players, not figure skaters.

Lastly you'll be forgiven for suppressing any memories of the last time the Bucks wore a third jersey.  Somehow I actually thought those were pretty cool looking back in the day, but to say they haven't stood the test of time would be an understatement.