Nike’s new statement jerseys ranked from meh to Warriors

I was looking through the new alternate jerseys by Nike in order to rank them when I noticed something very disappointing. Nike is doing the same thing with many of these alternate basketball jerseys that it does with its soccer jerseys. It’s creating a brand template and then adding the name of the team, of the player, and his number. They’re doing the least creative thing possible.

The Spurs jersey is the same as the Suns, Thunder, Cavaliers, Pacers, Rockets, Nets, Clippers and the Jazz a little bit. They’re just in a different color with a sometimes different font. The Hawks one is literally just the same as the third soccer kit for Chelsea, PSG, Manchester City, Barcelona, and so on.

Compared to the home and away jerseys, the “Association” and “Icon” editions, these “Statement” ones are pretty bland and uniform, made worse by the fact that the third jersey is usually where it’s allowed to be creative. There’s a chance of failure as with the Clippers jerseys last year, but at least there’s an effort to create something unique. These current ones are just not fun.

A lot of work went into these new jerseys. According to the Nike release:

“On average, NBA players travel four miles per game. Rather than a smoothly sustained effort, their movements are typically contained to 1.6-second bursts, tallying hundreds of tiny directional changes over the course of a game. This kind of constant motion reflects the free-flowing nature of the sport and underscores the importance of a lighter and more flexible uniform silhouette. In order to achieve these goals, Nike tuned the uniform design to the rigors of this increasingly intense 82-game season by employing 3D-body maps of players, including heat and sweat maps. This research led Nike’s designers to make significant changes to the weight, fit and construction -- with special attention to enhancing agility. NBA players, including members of last summer’s gold medal-winning USA Basketball team, tested an early version of the uniforms and provided specific feedback, requesting even more adjustments.”

With all the work that went into making these jerseys, it makes it even more perplexing that the actual look of it was ignored. Or, it would be bemusing if one assumes that Nike isn’t purposely dressing everyone in generic brand wear rather than creating uniforms that are unique to the team and fan base. At least the shorts are a bit different.

The ones that seem to retain some sort of particular identity in some aspects are the Wizards, Blazers, Timberwolves, Bucks — only because I love their logo being front and center — Grizzlies, Lakers, Warriors, Pistons, Nuggets, and the Mavericks. So those are the ones that I will rank, from best to worst.

This is definitely not Kevin Durant writing this but I think having the new crest, which includes the iconic Oakland Family’s Oak tree right in the center with “The Town” above it, is just absolutely wonderful. It’s easily the best jersey of the bunch. Nothing like the generic Thunder jersey. I mean, can you imagine trying to win a title in such a boring outfit, while you’re putting up historic numbers with no help? Anyways, the Warriors’ statement jerseys are great as a look and as a tribute to the city that they will be moving away from.

The deer logo is one of the coolest logos in the league. It’s a menacing look that goes well with Giannis Antetokounmpo’s transformation from Agnes in Despicable Me when she got her new unicorn, into the Darth Vader of the NBA. The blue stripes by the side on top of the white and green make no sense, but imagine Giannis euro-stepping and dunking on an unfortunate defender while wearing this jersey and all of a sudden, the blue doesn’t matter.

The best thing I can say about this Wizards jersey is that it’s what the Clippers wish they could have. And the two teams seem to be switching places in terms of success, so I guess it’s apt that the Wizards are flexing with a cool jersey and players of wonderful potential while the Clippers are losing everyone and rocking a shirt with a terrible logo on it.

There’s no way you can mess up a Lakers jersey. It’s iconic by nature.

It’s not bad, but it’s not good either. There’s a lot of gray and a lot of blue on the sides. It’s basically the shoulder shrug of jerseys here.

Once again, nothing too special either way. Unique in the fact that it looks different than all the other boring ones, but this is the 40 degree day of jerseys.

Red, black, and gray on white is cool. Red, white and gray on black is cool. Black and gray stripes on red is not good at all. The jersey template is already the same as the other generic Nike jerseys, the stripes was the one thing that would save this. And they chose the wrong colors for it. Unless the Blazers are all joining the bloods, it’s too much red.

A big blue stripe with the word “Dallas,” a skyline in gray beneath a gray star and a dark blue background, all makes this jersey look like it should be sold by a shady website that swears their jerseys are authentic when you know they’re not. This is the jersey you buy and claim that someone sent it to you when everyone says it’s fake.

A white skyline on way too much yellow. This is abusive to the eyes and to any sense of style. There’s nothing wrong with yellow and white individually, but when they combine, it’s like looking at the sun during a hangover.

10. The Timberwolves

It’s like the Grizzlies, but if the Grizzlies were wearing pennies while waiting to sub in for their soccer team.