When NBA Champions Were Cartoons 🏀

HOMEFIELD HEATER OF THE WEEK

Look, I know we're all getting hyped for football season. Homefield gets it too - they just dropped their 2025 Platinum Football Box and it's exactly what you need for the long haul ahead.

Inside each box (because who doesn't love unboxing heat):

• Two exclusive designs on their ridiculously soft tees and long sleeves (the kind your significant other will definitely "borrow")

• Their first-ever premium heavyweight hoodie - I’m told its like if their regular fleece had a bad break-up then spent all summer in the gym

• Choice of a 2025 Kickoff trucker or ringer tee (because decisions keep life interesting)

• Color-matched socks, because rolling up to gameday with mismatched socks is a war crime

• 2025 Platinum Pass (fancy name for "you get the good stuff first")

• Early birds get a commemorative football - perfect for desk fidgeting during Zoom calls

Dropping August 8th for 45 schools. If you've been waiting to go all-in on some quality gear this season, this is your moment.

Use code GRAILS15 for 15% off your first Homefield order.

GRAILS OF THE WEEK

Q&A: BIG HEADS, BIGGER ENERGY  

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The below is an excerpt from my bigger piece in the new issue of BSKT Mag. Get a copy here and follow the publication on Instagram.

There was a stretch—from about 1986 to 1999—when basketball wasn’t just a sport. It was a cartoon. In the best way possible.

Winning a title didn’t just mean rings and champagne. It meant your team got immortalized. Not with a banner. Not with a glossy Wheaties box. But on a caricature T-shirt. A very specific, very chaotic, very perfect T-shirt.

Oversized heads. Funky fonts. Bench players with names. Coaches in looking like evil professors. If your squad went all the way, they got the treatment. The tee dropped before the champagne dried.

No brand did it better than Salem Sportswear. Based out of New Hampshire but beloved in barbershops across America, they turned NBA rosters into cartoon murals you could wear. Artists like Bruce Starkhad a gift for exaggeration—turning Horace Grant’s goggles or Dennis Rodman’s hair into character design.

As a kid growing up in Chicago during the Bulls dynasty, those tees were currency. I had the ‘92-’93 and the BEST TEAM EVER ‘96-’97 one. You wore one that first week of school in September, and it said everything you needed to say: My team won. I was there. I remember. What’s up.

Detroit had their own heat. The ’89 and ’90 “Bad Boys” shirts? Iconic. Mahorn, Laimbeer, Zeke, and Salley all crammed into a cartoon brick wall. Mean mugs on ten. They didn’t need to smile—the shirts did the talking. The Showtime Lakers got one, as did the back-to- back Rockets title teams.

These tees weren’t just commemorative. They were alive. You could feel the vibe of the team in the ink. They looked like someone who actually watched the games had a hand in making them. Because they did.

 FROM THE VAULT

Until next time,