Here at the sports desk located somewhere below decks of the Good Pirate Ship RedState, we’ve oft noticed the, shall we graciously say, sporting world’s disconnect between spoken words and actions. You know the drill; athletes and team or league officials saying one thing when it comes to human rights issues or whatnot, yet whose actions indicate they are utterly disinclined to heed their own sayings. But enough about LeBron James.

In the latest example of talking the talk but walking in the opposite direction, we bring you the Golden State Warriors 2022-2023 City Edition jersey. A couple of background notes. One, I have been an unashamed Warriors fan since early childhood. I had a season ticket for the team during several of its lean years; thus, every couple of weeks would head out the door toward the Oakland Coliseum Arena while saying to she who is my wife, “Bye honey — I’m going to go watch the Warriors lose.” In short, I’m not a bandwagon jumper. Second, I’m so old I remember when pretty much every professional sports franchise had two uniforms. At home, other than football, you’d wear white. On the road, in baseball, you’d wear gray; in basketball and hockey, the team’s primary color, and in football, it would be white. Those days are over, replaced by multiple uniforms in every color of the rainbow. Or an actual rainbow. Or something the cat hocked up.

In the NBA, presently, every team has four or five jerseys: Association Edition, City Edition, Classic Edition, Icon Edition, and Statement Edition. This ensures either a three out of four or a four out of five, chance little Johnny or Susie will have a Christmas Day meltdown. Reason? Mom and Dad’s strange preoccupation this holiday season with figuring out how to pay the family’s food, heating, and gasoline bills without auctioning off little Johnny or Susie to a traveling band of gypsies. Thus, they bought the wrong jersey for their little monster. Hopefully, they at least got the right player. Also, for the game-attending fashion-conscious, the NBA conveniently provides a website saying which jersey each team will wear for any given game, thus saving people the major social faux pas of wearing a Statement Edition when everyone knows it’s Icon night.

Anyway, while the Association (formerly known as the home white) and Icon (formerly known as the road team color) jerseys usually stay the same year after year, far more often than not, the City, Classic, and Statement Edition ones change more frequently than a Kardashian’s relationship status. This is especially true if your team wins a lot; for some unfathomable reason, said teams sell a lot more merchandise. Go figure.

Anyway (again), the Warriors unveiled this season’s City Edition jersey yesterday, November 10^th, and … um, wow.

Talk about winning the Woke Olympics.

The team’s website waxes even more unintentionally mirthful:

The Warriors 2022-23 City Edition uniform, designed by Bay Area artist Allison Hueman, sits at the intersection of court, community, and culture. The new jersey speaks to the Warriors’ deep roots in the community and the team’s commitment to helping it bloom.

Fertilizer helps things bloom too, but I wouldn’t dedicate a professional sports team’s jersey to the stuff.

The Centerpiece (is) a yellow illustrated rose, representing women who change the game and lead fearlessly.

Um … you know this is the NBA and not the WNBA, right? Speaking of the latter, if women’s sports are the future, why don’t the Warriors, who play in the world’s woke capital and whose owners have more money than even the average politician would know how to spend, have a WNBA team? This says far more about the WNBA than any breathless ESPN report. But I digress.

The Rays of Sunshine (surrounding the centerpiece) symbolize the power of uplifting women.

Here, let me run this one through again: The. Warriors. Are. A. Men’s. Basketball. Team.

The Side Gradient (r)epresents the diversity of The Bay.

It’s a yellow stripe on a wider gray stripe on a black jersey. Maybe the artist is secretly a Stryper fan.

The Rose (is) symbolic of the women who are champions of our community.

Given that the team’s name is Golden State, this would work if the artist had gone with the state flower, namely the California poppy. But no, let’s keep putting female symbolism on a MENS BASKETBALL JERSEY.

The Warriors will debut the jersey tonight (November 11^th) at home against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Given the team’s current 4-7 record, maybe they’re hoping the other team will be too busy laughing at the site of these things to play effectively.