The Golden State Warriors will be come the first NBA team of the modern era to ditch jerseys in favor of sleeved shirts.
The Jerseys will make their debut on Feb. 22, when Golden State hosts the Spurs in the Oracle Arena. As the story goes, Warriors co-owner Peter Guber was sold on the jerseys 10 minutes into the pitch by Adidas.
“I went ‘Wow!’ ” Guber said of the August 2011 meeting to the Mercury News. “It was a very profound change. And I think Adidas presenting it to us and giving us the option to be the first one to do this demonstrates our willingness to be inventive.”
It’s being called the “adizero NBA short sleeve uniform system,” and Adidas boasts it a revolutionary marriage between performance and aesthetics. The uniforms are 26% lighter than traditional NBA Jerseys, which Adidas said its research revealed was most important to players. They come with moisture-absorbing feature and the sleeves are made with stretch fabric that wraps 360 degrees around the shoulder to ensure full range of motion.
It kind of makes you wonder, wouldn’t the jerseys be even lighter if there were no sleeves? I mean, we’re no rocket scientists, but hey…sell those jerseys, Adidas.
“We didn’t do this for the sales,” Warriors president Rick Welts said to Mercury News. “This is all about the image of the franchise and being forward.”
Right.
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Photo: Mercury News
