NBA City Edition Jerseys: 5 best and 5 worst

If you haven’t heard the news, the NBA just revealed the City Edition jerseys for all 30 NBA teams.

These jerseys are retro mixtape jerseys that are supposed to pay homage to the history of the franchise with different design elements from their jersey history. It is a fun idea and very fitting for the 75th anniversary of the NBA.

Everybody clamors for new jerseys until they get revealed and it isn’t exactly what they want. Ranking jerseys is always a fun thing to do and a great way to generate discussion because everybody has their own opinions. So I am going to do exactly that.

Here are the 5 best and 5 worst jerseys from the newly revealed NBA City Edition jerseys. One quick note on these rankings: I have excluded the Jazz and Suns because they are using the same City Jerseys as last season. I am a fan of both of their jerseys, but I am not going to consider them since they are not new.

I know the significance of some of the designs. Some of the reasoning behind the design choices might resonate deeply with somebody who has followed that team for a while more than a casual observer about everyone other than the Detroit Pistons like myself.

I am basing my rankings solely on the look of the jerseys. Keep in mind that I am a 90s kid who was too young to see a lot of the 90s jersey designs when they were actually being worn in all of their glory because I didn’t start watching basketball until the early 2000s. I also love the look of the 90s jersey, so I will rank the ones that incorporate some 90s designs a bit higher. With all of that out of the way, here are my 5 worst in no particular order:

I know the Thunder don’t have much of a history as the Oklahoma City Thunder. But I would have loved to have them do something with the Seattle Supersonics. At least reference it or something. I know the people of Seattle don’t like how things ended and don’t like the Thunder because of it. But it is still a part of their history.

And even if you want to play it safe and not reference the Sonics, at least do something more than this. This is boring and not fun at all. This is by far my least favorite jersey.

There is something about this that is just off to me. I am not a huge fan of the white accents and I don’t really like how the font looks on this particular jersey. I think this would have looked way better with the pinstripes or more black.

I am not a huge fan of the white numbers on a red jersey. I think this one could have looked really nice with a change of a few elements, but in its current state, I am just not a huge fan of it.

I know why the Orlando Magic have started to incorporate orange into their alternate jerseys the last couple of years, but I have never been a fan. There is something about seeing the classic Orlando Magic logo in orange that is jarring to me.

Topping that all off with a gray jersey just makes me not like it at all. I haven’t been a fan of any of the previous jerseys featuring orange that Orlando has used over the years, but this is by far my least favorite one.

The idea of having unique number fonts for each player is cool, but the execution on this misses the mark. I like the black with yellow lines on it, but the letters look like a ransom note. I totally get that they are a reference to each of Miami’s previous jersey fonts, but it just looks ugly.

It is a shame too because I love the colors they use.

I know the Pelicans are kind of in a similar boat to the Oklahoma City Thunder in regards to their history, and just like Oklahoma City, they took the boring approach to this jersey. It is obviously tough to reference the New Orleans Hornets because the Charlotte Hornets have used that g=name for most of their franchise’s history. I just think they could have done something more fun with this jersey.

I have always had an issue with the Pelicans jerseys. There is something about the name combined with the colors that makes them seem boring to me. The fact that this jersey just uses all of their colors on a white jersey is disappointing.

I have always loved Minnesota’s early 2000s jerseys. From the font to the colors, to the green trees, I have always loved all of it. This jersey has all of those elements. I love the blue color they use for the jersey and the white font pops on it.

If there is one flaw, I am not huge on the design on the side of the jersey and shorts, but the fact they used all the elements I loved about the 2000s Timberwolves jerseys makes it a great look to me.

This is probably my 90s jersey bias talking, but I have always loved the Fiesta Spurs jerseys. It is such a random thing for a franchise that has been all about the black and white jerseys, but I just love it.

It absolutely screams 90s. The only thing I would have changed is I would make the Spurs logo on it match the colors. It does knock it down a bit having the normal Spurs logo on it, but not enough to take it out of my top five.

Charlotte Hornets

I love this jersey. The font, the Stripes, the honeycomb pattern, everything. It is hard to go wrong with the Charlotte Hornets color scheme, and this jersey did not disappoint. I cannot point out any flaws to it. I love this jersey.

I have always been a fan of the classic Hawks logo. A Hawk spread out across the jersey holding a basketball is so cool. Having it on a yellow jersey makes it pop so much.

I also love the font on this jersey. It has a great logo with a great color scheme and there are like no flaws to this jersey.

This will probably come across as bias from somebody who writes about the Pistons, but I absolutely love their jerseys. I have been very critical of the Pistons jerseys over the years. They always seem to play it safe and do things that are not that exciting.

This jersey is exciting. I have always loved red Pistons jerseys, and the fact that these red jerseys also feature teal striping (hashtag, bring back the teal!), the Thunderbolts on the shorts, and the horse logo on the waistband are just perfect. It also has the old logo before the horse on the shorts as well.

I think the only jersey reveal I could have liked more than these is if they revealed the Teal jerseys (once again … bring back the teal).

What are your thoughts on these jerseys? Do you love them, do you hate them? What is your ranking of the jerseys? Speak up in the comments below!!