New uniforms celebrate Oakland, ‘We Believe’ era
In the fall of 2018, a Nike executive took a seat at Lois the Pie Queen, ordered from the menu and looked around. Framed photographs of influential people from Oakland covered the 50-year-old walls, sunlight beamed in from Adeline St. and the smell of a coffee drip filled the room. As he took in the scene, his gaze paused on a faded navy and orange cardboard sign plastered to the window. It read, “WE BELIEVE.”
“I remember like, ‘Wow, OK,’” said Raul Alejandro, art director at Nike. “It’s that important that it sits next to these other very important people and events that have happened in Oakland.”
It was here where Alejandro and a half dozen of his colleagues dined and got the inspiration for the Warriors’ “Oakland Forever” jerseys. (And, Alejandro said, had “the most amazing chicken and waffles I had in my life.”) The team will wear these new city edition jerseys for the first time Wednesday against the San Antonio Spurs. Like Lois the Pie Queen, they celebrate the City of Oakland and an important era in Warriors history, an era the team is trying to maintain a connection with after moving to San Francisco last season.
“The soul of this organization is built in Oakland,” said forward Draymond Green.
For those unfamiliar: “We Believe” became the slogan for the 2006-07 Warriors who went from finishing below .500 for the 12th straight year the season before to an improbable run to the second round of the playoffs that included knocking off the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks. To this day, it is one of the biggest upsets in league history.
As Stephen Jackson dribbled out the final seconds of Golden State’s win in Game 1 against the Mavericks in that series, he was wearing the navy jersey with orange piping and gold numbers the team wore from 2002 to 2010. Though they had just two winning seasons during that period, Warriors fans have positive feelings about that time.
“I associate the ‘We Believe’ jerseys with hope,” said Bram Hillsman, host of the popular Warriors Huddle podcast and a season-ticket holder since 2007.
After winning just 29 games in 2008-09, Golden State selected Stephen Curry with the seventh pick in the ’09 draft. Curry played only one year in navy and orange before the Warriors adopted their current look that jettisoned the orange, swapped navy for royal blue and lightning bolts for the Bay Bridge.
“The look is just so classic,” Curry said. “When you think of this franchise in Oakland or an expression of what we were, those jerseys are front and center. … To have Oakland across the chest now, it’s special. We have a lot of great memories on that side of the bridge and to pay respect to that era of Warriors basketball is obviously special for me because my rookie year — I’m the only one on this team that wore them.”
These new “Oakland Forever” jerseys are not an exact replica, but they take elements from those “We Believe” jerseys.
“We didn’t want to just do a throwback,” Alejandro said. “What this really represented was a fusion between these two eras: looking back at what the era represented but also acknowledging how far they have come.”
The obvious difference is that the front of the jersey says “Oakland” instead of “Warriors,” a direct shout out to the city where the franchise played for 47 years. There were internal discussions about using “The Town” nickname used on previous city edition jerseys, which change every year, but the design team wanted to be more straightforward.
Among other differences: the neckline is curved to mimic the current jerseys, ditto for the lines on the shorts. A “flying W” was added to the belt buckle as a nod to the previous era. (To get into the nitty-gritty of design, the “W” itself uses the current font while the lighting bolt is from the early 2000s.) There’s an “O” on the shorts that does the same thing.
And in case it’s not obvious enough, the words “We Believe” are embossed on the side. In a strange wrinkle, the Warriors franchise does not even own the trademark to “We Believe,” and had to get the OK from sportswear manufacturer ’47 Brand to use it.