Ranking and analyzing all 30 NBA City edition uniforms

1. Utah Jazz

Zach Lowe detailed the Jazz’s City alts for ESPN when they were unveiled, going in-depth on the thought process behind them and how Utah went from a dark set of green, navy and yellow colors to a bright ensemble of red, orange and yellow. The article is very interesting and highly recommended, and it contains answers to all the questions posed by this uniform.

A quick answer: The Jazz wanted to be more aggressive than they have in the past, and they settled on honoring Utah’s geography as a vehicle for that desire. The descending yellow-to-dark-red color pattern represents the state’s rocky vistas and national parks, a nod to the locale that isn’t always outwardly proclaimed by the “Jazz” nickname. If the uniform doesn’t tell you its intentions clearly enough, it is confirmed by the alternate home court they specifically designed to accompany these.

It could not have been executed better. The colors are gorgeous, maximized by the unique gradient-like pattern, and they look beautiful on court, the ultimate test for artistic gambles such as this. Nike’s goal for the City edition was to produce breaks from the norm, and this is the true manifestation of that. Other teams tried stuff, but Utah were the only one to break out an entirely new template. There are not many possible templates for a basketball uniform. The Jazz created a new one.

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The numbers and names are perfectly readable on TV and the colors are not too bright, a common mistake made by teams that go outside their palette for alternates. The courts are beautiful. The only problem that could be found from these is not even their fault: It’s difficult to create sufficient on-court contrast, as any light color jersey clashes with the top half of the jersey and dark colors clash with the bottom. But that’s nitpicking.

These immediately have hijacked the list of best alternate uniforms in sports. The San Diego (LA) Chargers’ powder blues still top the list, but these are an easy second. Aside from the Chargers’ beauties, there are very little uniforms in sports history that match up with what the Jazz produced.

I hope they make the Finals so we can see them as much as we possibly can.

Shop Utah jerseys from Fanatics.