The curtain will rise on the 2025-26 season in Oklahoma City on Oct. 21, when the defending champion Thunder will celebrate their first championship as they host former Thunder star Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets. And while much of the preseason is about rounding into shape and getting to the start of the season healthy, there are still things that can be gleaned from the early October action.
It is an irrefutable law of nature that for every achingly gorgeous football kit released around the world, an equal and opposite reaction is triggered in the form of a uniquely wild jersey design being produced to maintain the universal balance. With that in mind, having already rounded up a collection of the sharpest, most stylish shirts on offer this season, it's only right that we now turn the spotlight on some of the weirdest, quirkiest and honestly most downright hideous shirts to have dropped over the summer and into the early weeks of the 2025-26 campaign.
A new season, a new start. Feels like it comes around quicker every year, doesn't it? After an unusually busy summer of club football, it feels good to be back on the familiar firm ground of a regular European season - even if league organisers in Spain and Italy enjoyed playing abroad so much that they want to do it again.
Internal growth will be crucial for the Los Angeles Kings leading into the 2025-26 season as they seek to capitalize on past playoff experiences and improve their competitiveness in the Pacific Division.
Florida has the talent to make another title run. Before UConn won the national championships in 2023 and 2024, men's college basketball hadn't seen a repeat title winner since Florida in 2006 and 2007 -- but Todd Golden's Gators have the players to make it a trend. Alex Condon withdrew from the NBA draft to return to Florida, Rueben Chinyelu and Thomas Haugh are also back, and top transfers Boogie Fland and Xaivian Lee were added in the portal.