On a random trip to the NBA’s temporary store on 5th Avenue, I came across a couple t-shirts with 1990s semi-stars Dikembe Mutombo and Larry Johnson screen printed in cartoon form on the front of the shirts. Mutombo was featured stuck in time with his finger wag and Larry Johnson had his signature gold tooth flashing out of his signature smile. The shirts were too awesome to pass up.

The shirts reminded me of the old-school, big head caricature NBA tees that I grew up wearing (now being brought back by Mitchell & Ness), but these were different. These caricatures were less realistic than the tees from the 80s and more playful, almost as if they were in re-created as their Lego selves designed by a street artist. These were the NBA’s Geeked Up t-Shirt line produced by Adidas.

I ended up buying both shirts, wore them the next couple days and fell in love with my NBA Geek shirts.

I liked the NBA Geek shirts so much that I went back to the NBA Store a few days later to see if they had any different ones. My friend and I searched the store and couldn’t find the rack of shirts any longer. I went up to a couple of sales associates to ask and they both told me that the NBA geek shirts sold out FAST and that I was lucky to get one (I was wearing my LJ shirt).

I went to the NBA store online and couldn’t find very many geek shirts available. What gives? If the shirts are hot sellers, you would think the NBA/Adidas would be producing more, but the strategy is likely to keep them hot by keeping them to a limited run. For example, I haven’t seen any images or indication that the Larry Johnson or Dikembe Mutombo shirts were ever online (pictures coming).

I can’t wait until Chinatown catched on to this trend. Despite the street vendor feel, the NBA Geeked Up T-Shirts are an officially licensed NBA product from Adidas. Here’s some of the geek shirts I was able to find out on the internet.

No surprise to see Geeked Up tees with NBA stars like LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Dwyane Wade, Russell Westbrook, Anthony Davis, Steph Curry, Rajon Rondo, and old school players like Larry Bird and Dennis Rodman. What’s interesting is the decision to geek up less-popular players like Reggie Evans, Andrei Kirilenko, and Phil Jackson but not players like Kobe Bryant, Blake Griffin, Jeremy Lin, Swaggy P, Kevin Love, DeMar Derozan, John Wall, James Harden, and Brian Scalabrine. It’s likely because of the players endorsement contracts?

If you find any other NBA geek tees that I’ve missed, please drop us a note at breaking at interbasket.