NBA City Edition Jerseys 2026-27: Every Team, the September 15 Reveal, and What Has Already Leaked

The 2026-27 NBA City Edition jerseys land on September 15, 2026. Every club is teasing the date, Nike has confirmed it from the manufacturer's side, and it is the tenth year of the program, which is why this one is being launched all at once instead of dripped out club by club through the fall.

This page is the tracker. Every team's status, every design that has already leaked, and a grade on each uniform the day it becomes real.

When Do the 2026-27 NBA City Edition Jerseys Come Out?

Two dates matter, and they are not the same one.

September 15, 2026 is the reveal. That is the date on every teaser poster the clubs posted on August 26, and Nike Basketball confirmed it that evening with its own teaser: "The next chapter of the NBA is for the obsessed." We took the teaser apart in our breakdown of the 09.15.26 campaign.

January 2027 is when they reach stores. That is a genuine break from habit. City Edition has historically been a November retail drop, worn from around the same time. Pushing the sell-through to January while revealing in September gives the collection a four-month runway, which is what an anniversary program looks like rather than a normal season alternate.

Why the Tenth Year Is Different

The 2025-26 season was the ninth run of Nike's City Edition. That makes 2026-27 the tenth, and the reporting on it points at three changes that apply across the whole collection rather than to one club.

That third one is the interesting part, and both confirmed uniforms already prove it. Atlanta is bringing back its 2020-21 design. Washington is bringing back its 2022-23 design. Philadelphia's leaked one is a return of a 2017-18 design. If the brief is "bring back your best," this collection is effectively a league-wide vote on which City Editions actually worked, decided by the teams themselves.

It also means the 2026-27 collection should be unusually good. Nine years of City Edition produced some genuinely great uniforms and a lot of black-with-a-gradient filler. A remix year skips the filler.

Every Team's 2026-27 City Edition Status

Ten of thirty are accounted for: two officially unveiled, eight leaked. The other twenty are blank until September 15.

Still blank, twenty clubs: Brooklyn Nets, Toronto Raptors, Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, Indiana Pacers, Milwaukee Bucks, Charlotte Hornets, Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves, Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland Trail Blazers, Utah Jazz, LA Clippers, Dallas Mavericks, Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans, San Antonio Spurs, Houston Rockets.

The Two That Are Actually Confirmed

Atlanta went first, back in January. On MLK Day the Hawks announced they will revive their 2020-21 City Edition during 2026-27: the black uniform built with Dr. King's estate, carrying a white MLK wordmark. It is the most substantial uniform in the program's history and the least surprising thing on this list to bring back.

Washington followed in March, and it is a straight return of the Cherry Blossom uniform that first ran in 2022-23. They are calling it "City in Bloom."

via the Washington Wizards

It holds up. A pink base with blue gradient breaks two of our usual rules at once, since we normally want a City Edition to keep some connection to the club's own palette and we normally do not want a gradient at all. This one earns both exceptions because the cherry blossoms are a real Washington thing and the two colors sit together instead of fighting. Our full grade is in the Wizards Cherry Blossom breakdown.

More usefully: two clubs independently confirming old fan favourites, eight months apart, is the clearest evidence there is for the remix theory. Neither announcement waited for September 15 either, which suggests the reveal date is a retail moment rather than an embargo.

The Eight Designs Filed Under the Wrong Name

In April, eight Nike designs leaked and circulated as the 2026 Christmas jerseys. We published and graded all eight.

They are almost certainly not Christmas jerseys. The NBA has published its 2026-27 schedule since then, and three of the eight clubs, Atlanta, Sacramento and Detroit, are not playing on December 25 at all. A team that is not on the Christmas slate does not get a Christmas uniform. Meanwhile five teams that are on the slate never appeared in the leak.

Read the designs themselves and it settles: Motor City flames, a Light the Beam gradient, Bay Bridge cabling. Those are local landmarks and local rituals, which is the City Edition brief nearly word for word. Christmas has always run one league-wide holiday theme rather than thirty separate city stories.

So we published eight real Nike designs five months early under a label that does not hold up. Whether they are City Editions is a separate question, and the section below that one is where we take our own argument apart. Each design is graded individually:

The Fact That Cuts Against Our Own Theory

Here is the problem with what we just argued, and we would rather put it in front of you than leave it out.

Atlanta has already announced its 2026-27 City Edition, and it is not the leaked design. The Hawks said in January that they are reviving the MLK uniform. The leaked Atlanta jersey is blue and green brushstrokes on near-black. Those are two completely different uniforms, and only one of them can be Atlanta's City Edition.

So the leaked Hawks design is not a City Edition. It is also not a Christmas jersey, because Atlanta is not on the December 25 slate. Which leaves it as something we cannot currently name: a Statement Edition, an unused concept, or a design for a program that has not been announced.

That single fact should lower your confidence in the whole eight-jersey theory, including ours. The honest version is narrower than what we published in April:

A leak five months out is a work in progress in any case. We will find out on September 15, and we will say plainly which of these we got wrong.

The Two Other Live Leaks

Philadelphia's parchment "Phila." The reported 2026-27 Sixers City Edition is a return of the 2017-18 parchment uniform built off the Declaration of Independence, with the anniversary's aluminium Swoosh on it. That 2017-18 shirt is one of the two or three best things the City Edition program has ever produced, so bringing it back is the least surprising and most welcome decision on this list.

Phoenix's teal Valley. A leak in May put the Suns' Valley template on bright teal rather than the black they have been running. We graded the teal version an A against the black one's B-. Teal is a real Phoenix color with real history, and the desert-sun graphic finally has a base that lets it breathe.

Neither is confirmed. Both are consistent with the remix brief.

What Would Make Us Wrong

We are not going to pretend the September 15 program is confirmed as City Edition, because it is not. Nike and the NBA have published a date and nothing else.

The teaser could be a new base uniform template across all four editions, which would be a much bigger story than an alternate. It could be an apparel capsule rather than a uniform at all. And the January retail date is unusual enough that it may point at something we have not considered.

What we are confident about: it is a league program, it involves Nike, it involves merchandise, and it happens on September 15. What we believe without claiming it as fact: this is the tenth-anniversary City Edition collection, and most of it will be remixes.

Frequently Asked Questions

When are the 2026-27 NBA City Edition jerseys revealed?

September 15, 2026. Every NBA club posted a teaser carrying that date on August 26, and Nike Basketball confirmed it the same evening with its own post. It is a single league-wide reveal rather than the staggered club-by-club rollout City Edition has used in past years.

When do the 2026-27 City Edition jerseys go on sale?

January 2027, according to the reporting on the anniversary collection. That is later than the usual November City Edition retail drop, and the gap between a September reveal and a January release is one of the things that marks this out as an anniversary program rather than a normal season alternate.

Which NBA teams have revealed their 2026-27 City Edition uniform?

Two so far. The Atlanta Hawks announced in January that they are reviving the MLK uniform first worn in 2020-21, and the Washington Wizards confirmed in March that the Cherry Blossom design returns as "City in Bloom." Eight more clubs have leaked rather than been unveiled: the 76ers, Suns, Pistons, Kings, Warriors, Celtics, Knicks and Lakers.

Why is the 2026-27 City Edition a special collection?

2026-27 is the tenth season of Nike's City Edition program. The anniversary brings an iridescent aluminium-finish Swoosh, the NBA logo moved to the back neck, and a remix brief that has clubs bringing back their best design from the program's first nine years rather than creating new ones.

Are the leaked NBA Christmas jerseys actually City Edition uniforms?

Some may be, but not all, and we are less confident than we were. The Christmas label is definitely wrong: three of those clubs, Atlanta, Sacramento and Detroit, do not play on December 25. But Atlanta has since announced that its 2026-27 City Edition is the MLK revival, which is a completely different uniform from the leaked Atlanta design. So at least one of the eight is neither a Christmas jersey nor a City Edition, and we do not know what program it belongs to.

What is an NBA City Edition jersey?

The City Edition is the alternate uniform each NBA club wears roughly a dozen times a season, designed around something specific to the team's city rather than the club's standard colors. Nike introduced it in 2017-18 and every team gets one every year.

Will every NBA team have a City Edition uniform in 2026-27?

Yes. All 30 clubs have had a City Edition every season since the program launched, and the anniversary collection is being launched league-wide on one date, which means all 30 land together on September 15.

The Bottom Line

Ten of thirty are accounted for and the other twenty arrive at once on September 15. Both confirmed uniforms are old designs brought back, and the strongest leak is an eight-year-old design brought back, which tells you what kind of collection this is.

A remix year should be the best City Edition collection since the program started, because the teams are picking from work that already proved itself rather than inventing something for a deadline. That is also the risk: a league-wide greatest-hits album is only as good as the hits, and a few of these clubs do not have one.

We grade all 30 the day they land, and we will say which of our calls on the leaked eight were wrong. Check back on September 15.

Washington Wizards uniform graphic via the Washington Wizards. Cover art is our own. ColorWay Sports is an independent design site and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the National Basketball Association, Nike, or any club named here.