The 10 Best Retro-Style NBA Jackets

At this point, getting an authentic jacket that actually came out during the 1990s is probably going to come by way of peer-to-peer selling, which Grailed offers plenty of. If you happen to be a longtime Hornets fan, this is right up your alley.

Or if you prefer buying brand new, Mitchell & Ness does a good job at capturing the essence of 1990s culture with their vintage apparel. If you had any doubts about 90s fashion never going out of style—this hoodie was last purchased less than 24 hours ago.

This is admittedly my first time hearing about the site Jackets Creator, but they seem to have some rare pieces. The late 80s and early 90s Pistons teams remain a legendary part of NBA history, and this jacket is straight from that era.

I’m not sure of the exact details of when exactly this was released, but my best guess would be that it probably dropped somewhere around the 1992 or 1996 Olympics since it’s USA-themed. Either way, this is a dope neutral jacket that doesn’t have any specific team branding on it.

Starter jackets are about as 1990s as you can get. One of these days we are going to do a deep dive into the history of the Starter clothing brand, but owning a piece of history for just a little over 40 bucks doesn’t sound like too bad of a deal if you ask us.

Once again, the last purchase on this jacket was just a little over an hour ago, so believe us when we say 90s fashion is always on the verge of a comeback. 

Another new/old jacket. Fans of other teams may disagree strongly with this statement, but I truly believe that the 90s Chicago Bulls elevated the satin bomber/oversized jacket/letterman look in sports culture. They weren’t the first to do it, but they were the most impactful, seeing as though they were the most popular team in the NBA (and one of the most popular teams in sports period). I say all of this just to say—this is a very nice jacket.

According to Mitchell & Ness, this is an authentic warmup jacket from the 1997-1998 season. I take the word authentic to mean that this is actually from that era. It’s giving very much NBA on NBC too.

But that’s not all! There are plenty more authentic Warmup Jackets available for different teams as well. While the 95-96 season was still two years out from the arrival of all-time great Vince Carter, there were still notable names such as Doug Christie and Damon Stoudamire.

I don’t think this actually dropped during the 1990s, but it still captures the vibe which is good enough in our opinion. Actually, upon further investigation, we’ve spotted the Brooklyn Nets logo (which would have been the New Jersey Nets back then) so this is definitely new. Still a great jacket though.