These Are Nike’s 5-Best City Edition Uniforms For The 2022-23 NBA Season

The NBA is not especially great at keeping its alternate jerseys under wraps ahead of whenever they are announced. Regardless, on Thursday morning, the league unveiled its full roster of City Edition uniforms, the final group that needed to be announced during the 2022-23 season. Here’s what all of them look like:

Some of them are very, very good. Others are flat out bad, while others are just boring. Maybe inoffensive is a nicer word. But the one thing you can certainly say about all of them is that they exist, and today, we are going to highlight the 5-best jerseys that Nike and teams cooked up for the upcoming campaign.

5. New Orleans

Any time the Pelicans have a chance to do a cool, Mardi Gras-inspire jersey, they should. Really, that extends to any New Orleans team — I am looking at you, Saints.

Regardless, the Pels going with a jersey inspired by the colors of Mardi Gras is nothing new. The concept continues to be very good, and the deep purple base for these makes the green, yellow, and light purple stripes across the chest stand out. There is something to be said for not blowing a layup, which New Orleans did here.

4. San Antonio

San Antonio hosted the 1996 NBA All-Star Game, which gave us some of the best uniforms in All-Star history. The ones on the right, look at them, they’re great.

Doing something with these will always be a good idea. Doing these specific uniforms: also a good idea. They take the general color scheme, a very unique one, and run with it without just making a complete replica that has SPURS on the front. There’s also a special court for these nights.

3. Portland

AIRPORT JERSEYS. This is going to be the preferred uniform for any sportswriter, in large part because none of the jerseys are inspired by Marriott. These are a really cool concept and I generally like how they were executed — the teal stripe across the front pays homage to the carpet at the Portland airport, while the airport code is PDX. The color scheme — black base, vibrant teal, white/gray letters and accents — really pops, too.

2. Washington

Generally, Washington’s entire schtick is bad. The Wizards, as a nickname, is very weird since there are no wizards in the nation’s capital. Despite that, the team has a red, white, and blue color scheme. It has never made much sense to me.

What does make a ton of sense to me, however, are their City Edition uniforms, which pay tribute to the iconic cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C. The pink-to-blue gradient looks quite good, and just generally, these do not look like any other uniforms in the NBA. Pink is a color that doesn’t always work when it is the star of the show. These do, though, in a big way.

1. Atlanta

I might go as far as to say that these are among the best jerseys in American professional sports right now. These are unbelievable. The font, the colors, the little “Peach Tree” on the front of the jerseys, everything is perfect. Even the court that they have for the nights they wear these is sensational.

Their old PEACHTREE jerseys were not my favorites, not by a longshot. These, however, are the best in the NBA this season, City Edition or otherwise.