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Did Iman Shumpert leak a new orange alternate New York Knicks jersey on Instagram?

That right there's a photo uploaded to the Instagram account of Iman Shumpert at around 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday evening. The New York Knicks swingman and Adidas endorser — you might remember the NBA forcing him to remove the sneaker company's logo from his hair this past spring — shared the shot from an Adidas photo shoot in Los Angeles, then promptly deleted it, which caused some shouts and murmurs among the more sartorially inclined segments of the NBA blogosphere. (Luckily, UniWatch's Paul Lukas and @Jose3030, among others, snagged shots before Shump's deletion so that the rest of us didn't miss it.)

The Knicks redesigned their jerseys before the 2012-13 season, but didn't have a regular alternate kit, going with the standard home whites and road blues. They did wear monochromatic all-orange uniforms for their Christmas Day matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers, but that was a one-time deal connected to the "BIG Color" campaign that the NBA and Adidas concocted to help promote the apparel-maker's Winter Court Collection; we didn't see the citrus-flavored look again last season, and had seen neither hide nor hair of another orange look ... until now. (For the record, a Knicks spokesman told me Thursday morning he couldn't confirm whether what Shumpert's modeling is an official alternate uniform the team will wear in the future.)

With Knicks star Carmelo Anthony surpassing the likes of LeBron James and Kobe Bryant in NBA jersey sales last season, it would stand to reason that the league and its official apparel partner might want to introduce another game jersey into the Knicks' rotation and, by extension, onto store shelves. And while orange — and especially that much orange — is unlikely to be everyone's cup of tea, maintaining the clean look of last year's revamped unis while sticking with a traditional team color seems to make for a pretty eye-catching look. Just steer clear of sleevin' 'em and they ought to be fine.

So what do you think? If this isn't an official alternate coming soon to an NBA court near you, should it be? And if it is, would you pick one up? Let us know in the comments below, on Facebook or on Twitter.

Screencap via The Sporting News.

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