He is, after all, a Boston Irishman. And even when Boston’s Irish are sober, they’re quicker to anger and more eager to fight than even the most belligerent drunks anywhere else.

Just look at him. He’s laying back, chillin’ in a gold lamé vest and bow tie. And he’s winking at you as he spins that basketball on one finger. Why is he winking? Is it because he’s got the dexterity to smoke, lean on his shillelagh and spin the ball all at the same time? Is it because he knows he can keep that ball spinning as he pokes holes in you with the sharpened end of that stick? Is it because he knows he can drop the shillelagh and cross you over while blowing pipe smoke in your grill before finding the back door cutter for the dunk?

Yes, yes and yes.

Is there a logo that captures the city and the team better than the Celtics logo? No. Not even close. We all know leprechauns are small. They have no business being cocky or brash, but this little guy doesn’t care. From the outfit, to that smug smirk and wink, to the showing off as he gangsta-leans and balances that ball. When you really take a close look at him, you realize “Wow…That little sprite is a bit of a douche. I think I hate him.”

Unless you’re from Boston — then you love that little guy and his “fuck the world” demeanor.

It’s just like the team. You either love ‘em or you hate ‘em. There may be no other logo in all of sports that captures all of that quite as nicely as the Celtics’ logo.

John Karalis follows the Celtics and reminisces over Dino Radja at Red’s Army. He’s the tall, white dude with a shaved head who once made this video and one of the guys I often chat with on The 8th Seed podcast

The mythos and success of Michael Jordan combined with the fact that the bull imagery accompanied the creation and rise of what was perhaps the biggest global marketing personality of all time means that when I look at the the Bulls’ logo, I’m not just looking at a logo. I’m looking at six rings. I’m looking at Mars Blackmon. I’m looking at the Double Nickel. I’m looking at ProStars. I’m looking at the Flu Game. I’m looking at Wheaties. I’m looking at 63 in Boston Garden. I’m looking at the Dream Team.

I’m looking at the hangtime. I’m looking at the flying motion.

It might not be quite as iconic as the Jumpman logo in this regard, but looking at the Bulls logo is essentially looking at the coat of arms for basketball perfection — or at least the memory of basketball perfection that my adolescent and teenage mind created, which is what really matters in this case.

For me, even more than a decade removed from the MJ era, trying to see the Bulls’ logo as just a cartoon beast of burden is as difficult as trying to see a swastika as a sacred emblem of Navajo culture; intellectually, I know it’s just a symbol, but my brain attaches an emotional memory to it that clouds rational thought. (Although the connotation and physical reaction to the sight of the symbol is obviously very different.)

Still, the Bull is undeniably hardcore. You definitely don’t want this guy chasing you through Pamplona. And if you’re the matador unlucky enough to run into this dude in the ring, you might just wanna hang up your cape before this happens.

Still, from Rony Seikaly and Glen Rice toiling away in obscurity to Timmy and Zo making waves in the East to Flash and Shaq bringing home the Larry O’Brien trophy, the franchise has enjoyed a nice linear arc of success. And the team’s entire style, along with its logo, has transformed from expansion fly to champion iconic. For a team that once retired Michael Jordan’s “23″ in its rafters, today, the only jersey you’re going to see on South Beach is a Dwyane Wade — or maybe a Rudy Gay.

Looking past any of that, juxtaposed against other NBA teams that use basketballs in their logos (looking squarely at you, Clipps and Nets), the Heat have laid out blueprint plans for how any expansion franchise in sports should create and manage its logo:

Step 1: Create a logo that relates to your name. (Disclaimer: If you’re name is “The Thunder,” change name before beginning logo process.)

Step 2: Make your logo simple, sticking to the script of what has worked historically while also — and this is where most teams go astray — adding a singular, unique element that sets you apart.

Step 3: Don’t use more than three colors — or four if completely necessary and you can give a legitimate, well-articulated reason for it.

Step 4: Don’t use ephemeral color combinations, lettering or design principles that will be dated in a decade. The last thing you want is to wind up like the Spurs, who abandoned their timeless silver-and-black logo in favor of colors representative of an interior design fad during the South West population boom, only to later realize that, yeah, don’t do that. Not so coincidentally, the Spurs have reverted back to their original look. See also: 76ers, Philadelphia; Pistons, Detroit. (And, yes, I realize that the Heat’s lettering might start to look dated within the next decade — although not necessarily. Regardless, they should be able to launch a preemptive, minor redesign that will avert looking like an early-90s relic if necessary.)

Step 5: If after a few years you determine that the logo is not perfect, tweak it a little provided you first determine that the logo is worth preserving. This is always the ideal way of changing things. Never change just for change’s sake. Worse still is changing for marketing sake or to create a new revenue stream. Fans have and want to maintain a connection to the past and even if it’s only five or six years, a change will be jarring and ultimately unfortunate. Still, be honest with yourselves. If the logo needs aborting, don’t hesitate — kick that bitch down the stairs.

Step 6: Once you have a good look, remember the best part of Jay-Z’s Blueprint and apply it to your franchise: Never Change.

What up to my Miami and St. Thomas connects.

If Hov don’t sign LeBron, him and Flash gonna get paper longer than Pippen’s arms.

What is it, anyway, a little spinny thing? Is that like an Oregon Trail wagon wheel on steroids? The media guide says it’s “a modern graphic interpretation of five basketball players from one side going against five basketball players from the other and rotating around a center circle.” OK, so even if I grant you a curved line as a picture of a player, we’ve got ten of them in our logo? And our five are dancing in a circle with somebody else’s five? Who’s the other team? And what are they doing in our logo?

And, more to the point, this being the artist’s intention … does anybody get that? Anyone look at this logo and see ten basketball players?

All that said, it’s easily one of the best logos in the NBA.

I’m not kidding. Before writing this, I scouted the competition, and it is weak. W-E-A-K. This is one of those tournaments where you might get on the podium just by showing up, because all kinds of people are sure to forfeit or be disqualified.

Every single logo that’s a picture of some goofy mascot? Toronto, Boston, Golden State, Memphis … I think that’s just asking too much of your mascot. That Grizzly bear (it’s from Vancouver!) does not say Memphis to me. That Raptor is clownish, and the Warriors logo is a human, but not a Golden State Warrior, which seems kind of strange.

None of them feel iconic.

Similarly, Dallas (ooh, sexy horse), Orlando (is that pixie dust?), Sacramento (kings with swords … should be sponsored by Medieval Times), Milwaukee (the perfect logo for the Christmas day game, but otherwise …), Minnesota (six evergreens? It’s a logo not a reforestation project), Phoenix (the sun is the one thing in this solar system that does not move, yet theirs has been shot from a cannon) and all those teams with some version of a shield (Oklahoma City, New Jersey, Cleveland) just seem to be very much also-ran.

None of them do, for me, what a logo is supposed to do, which is to represent the team in a way that makes them easier to remember.

Only a few do that. Atlanta’s is not bad. The Bulls. The Nuggets and Rockets are OK. Miami, the Knicks and the new/old Sixers … these are at least iconic. At least when you see those logos, you think instantly of the team. Even the Pacers’ goofy old letter P at least says “Pacers” to me, unlike that bizarro Golden State thing.

But in this context, hats off to Portland for its crazy ten-players-doing-the-maypole-dance number. It isn’t overloaded with fir trees or cartoon dinosaurs, and sports fans generally know what it means.

For that, it’s surely one of the greatest logos in the NBA.

Henry Abbott is … well, c’mon … you know who he is. Henry runs TrueHoop.

The Memphis Grizzlies’ logo would straight up fucking murder you. No shit.

Look, I know what you’re saying.

“But Mike Conley doesn’t even scare people on Halo!”
“Hasheem Thabeet’s coordination make Donkey Kong look like a ninja warrior!”
“It’s blue, for Chrissakes! The last blue bear was a Care Bear!”

I get that. I hear you.

“There aren’t even any grizzlies in Memphis!”

Yeah, well there’s no music in Utah, but the Jazz play on. And this logo will fucking kill you.

It’s not just the sheer size of the head. Though it’s a gigantic melon. I mean seriously, it’s like sputnik. Spherical but quite pointy in some places. But the head has itself a force field. You think that weak-ass zombie-buck has a force field? No. It doesn’t. But what you don’t know is the force field isn’t to keep you out. It’s to keep the Grizzly in. It’s a self-restraint, built to pacify this demon that has been sent to rend you from inside out, like a Joe Crawford foul call or the latest album from Pearl Jam. And you will know its wrath.

You know why you will know its wrath? Because of the evil eye. Seriously. Check out that expression. That’s no screaming wussy tantrum-throwing Bear. This bear isn’t surprised to see you. It’s just ready to kill you. And leave you for dead. Possibly take a dump on you before wandering off to go have sex with some farm equipment. And that’s if you get the good side.

What’s the good side? The good side is one that isn’t obscured by shadow like the dark side of the moon. You know what lives on the dark side of the moon? No, not terrific albums from 60s rock legends. Hell. That’s what. There’s even a movie.

So before you go running around thinking you can go dancing with that bear, sweetheart, you better check yourself before you disembowel and get shredded by the icy cold claws of wrath yourself. This bear lives in Memphis, and its sweet blues rhythms will be the last thing you hear before you’re swallowed alive.

Seriously, dude. Farm equipment.

Matt Moore is an all-around nice guy who when not reading to kids who can’t read good or helping old ladies with their groceries writes about the NBA at Hardwood Paroxysm, NBA FanHouse and BusterSports.

And on the seventh day, Smoky the Bear said “You know what? Fuck it. Burn that shit down.”

Part I: Why the Hornets Logo is Awesome
by ticktock6

In 2007, the Hornets came back to New Orleans after two seasons in Oklahoma City, and people here were a combination of bored and really pissed off. Bored because the Hornets hadn’t been in the city for many years before Katrina, and had never established themselves in a way that even got close to how the Saints were entrenched in the city’s culture and the people’s hearts. Pissed off because people in the organization at times came close to bad-mouthing New Orleans in their attempts to suck up to OKC. There were comments made. There were offensive articles published. There was speculation over whether the team should stay. People here were also angry at the team’s attempts to separate itself from New Orleans. There were jerseys with “Oklahoma City” on them, and a new secondary logo that just looked like a big generic H — cause, hey, generic means wherever you stick the team you don’t have to change it! — and the team was announced as “Your Hometown Hornets” without any mention of New Orleans. If it was your team doing that, while your city sat in ruins, you’d be mad too. Unsurprisingly, when the Hornets returned, they didn’t sell out their opener. And through January a crowd of 8,000 was not uncommon.

Then a funny thing happened. The team started to win. They started to win and they just wouldn’t stop. And people within the organization started to push. They put the Fleur de Bee logo on everything. They handed out free stuff. They advertised $8 seats. Did you know we have free kegs and local bands outside the arena for every home game? Well, we do. And people responded. In a month, every game was sold out and stayed that way through the playoffs and the next (less successful) season.

The way this logo slowly took over for the old school hornet as 2007-08 went on is indicative of how the organization slowly came to understand how to win over the fans in New Orleans. George Shinn thought he could do all the same things he did in Charlotte and Oklahoma City. But what he and his staff didn’t understand was that you can put your team in New Orleans, but at the end of the day that’s just geography. New Orleans is not like other cities. It’s just not. It’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived here. That’s why anything — including the big H logo in the center of the court — that reminded people of the whole “Your Hometown Hornets” thing pissed everyone off. New Orleans is not “your hometown.” It’s not ____fill in the blank____ City. You have to give people a reason to see themselves in their team. And you know, I don’t dislike the old Hugo the Hornet logo. It’s definitely still around. But you can go to the official website and see for yourself what’s at the top.

So that’s our logo. Probably a lot of fans don’t think about their team’s logo, like they don’t think and worry about the future of their city. But we do. On a more aesthetic note, the new shades of purple/teal are less eye-searing, I personally think it’s actually a little meaner than the regular hornet, and it looks pretty damn good on the back of a car next to your matching Saints sticker. Where it should be.

Part II: I Thought I Knew You, Hugo
by Zach Harper

Look at you, Hugo.

You’re grotesque. You’re so out of shape that you’ve formed a completely unfamiliar silhouette that isn’t found in nature — like the contestants on More To Love. You think that slapping on a “NOLA” shirt will distract people from the horrendous blob that you have turned yourself into, but you’re wrong. I can’t tell if you have wings or John Wooden’s ears. And yet, we can’t help but stare at your enormous, um, stinger?

I can’t tell if it’s flaccid or ready for business but whatever it is, it’s an eyeful. You’re like the John Holmes of NBA logos. You look like the Space Needle after downing bottle of Viagra. You’re the opposite of a Ken doll. You’re both anatomically incorrect because he has no genitalia and you’re hung like an elephant’s arm. (All these phallic references make me fear that Brendan Haywood is going to write a blog entry about me, so I’ll move on.)

You do look like you’re ready for Bourbon Street, however, and that Katie Holmes-esque fake smile shows me that you’re ready for some illicit action with some inebriated coeds. But you don’t represent the city of New Orleans. You’re a retread from the streets of Charlotte who has moved your molesting ways to a new part of the country so you don’t have to walk around introducing yourself to the neighbors. And you don’t need no stinking beads because you have enough Rohypnol stored in your oversized sneakers to sedate an entire Arizona State sorority.

You should be ashamed, Hugo. ASHAMED.

I keep getting older, but they stay the same age.

With the logo and name together, it kinda looks like the franchise has a stuttering problem.

Yeah, you — the guy in the camo gear with the orange vest, the greasy hair, the goatee and those weird yellow-tinted goggles that old people to like to wear. I just wanted to give you a heads up: don’t mess with me. Seriously. Whatever gun you’ve brought with you for this “hunt” that you’re on — don’t use it. Turn around, walk back through the woods, pick up the cans of Beast that you left lying around, get in your pickup and go home.

I’m warning you right now: you don’t want it with me. I’m a motherfucking Milwaukee Buck. You got me? Muh-ther-fuh-cking Mil-wall-key Buck.

Do you not see the muscles bulging out of my neck and shoulders? Do you know how many yokes I had to pull; how many sets of neck ups I had to tear through; how many delt exercises I had to invent; how much DGH went into this fucking bod? My muscles have their own muscles. Look at that picture! There is no Gold’s Gym in the Wisconsin hinterlands. We don’t get a one-time trial session with a deer trainer when we join the local forest.

We just tear shit up.

You sure you can handle it, gunnin’ for me? Don’t just stop at my ripped neck. Look at how my antlers, ever sharp, don’t point out toward you but up and in, back toward themselves. That’s sinister, hombre. You will get torn up if those things catch you where the sun don’t shine. Or in the face. IN THE FACE!

And how about my eyes? Yeah, that’s right — I’m rockin’ demonic zombie eyes. We’d have colored them in with red, but Herb Kohl wants children to leave the arena without the fear of an impending nightmare. But don’t think for a second that I won’t ride out like some heartless S.O.B. Because I will. I make those four horses carrying the harbingers of apocalypse look like My Little Pony.

And the blood. Did you notice the blood? I’m fucking swimming in it over here. A large, looming triangle of bitch-ass blood, drawn through violence from punks like you. At this point, maybe you’re swimming in something else. Have you pissed yourself yet? I wouldn’t be surprised.

So, yeah, walk away, little man.

You don’t want it.

Joey writes about hip hop, politics, sports and life at Straight Bangin’ and waxes poetic on the NBA at FreeDarko. Sometimes, he can be heard on the FreeDarko Presents: The Disciples of Clyde Podcast. Other times, you can find him at the library pursuing higher education and listening to Dilla. You don’t want it with Joey neither.

You don’t want it.

As most people know, a team named after what could be considered the defining African-American pop culture contribution of the 20th century did not originate in Salt Lake City. No, the Jazz franchise began in New Orleans and relocated to Utah in 1979 after financial trouble, arena complications and fan disinterest made staying untenable.

So Utah inherited an inappropriate team name, logo and colors — purple, green and gold being emblematic of Mardi Gras. But this actually worked out swimmingly for all involved as, according to legend, it was watching the images of the 7′4″, heavenly* bearded Jazz center, Mark Eaton, block shots like a madmen that inspired known basketball aficionado and singer/songwriter Prince to record Purple Rain.

Despite this, Utah execs eventually felt that the franchise needed a reboot. In 1996, the team decided to abandon its iconic music note image and, instead, brazenly rip off the exact concept used by the only other NBA team that resides in the Rocky Mountains. As previously noted, the Denver Nuggets’ logo is far from perfect, but it is a solid option for a team named after gold nuggets and located in the state of Colorado. Gold was indeed mined heavily throughout the Rockies and, as evidenced by its array of world-renowned ski resorts and its capital city being nicknamed The Mile High City, the state of Colorado is the state that most Americans most associate with America’s most iconic mountain chain. So when the Nuggets adopted a redesigned mountain/giant block letter logo in 1993, it was at least conceptually logical, if not aesthetically beautiful.

Three years later in 1996, Jazz execs decided that they needed to similarly revamp their franchise. With three future Hall of Famers — John Stockton, Karl Malone and Jerry Sloan — the Jazz were as good as they had ever been on the court. Still, something else was needed. They needed a new logo. Not a new name though. Because why change that? It was too perfect. Jazz music was not native to Utah, sure, but ever since the Jazz franchise had moved to Utah, bebop, swing, fusion and the avant-garde movement had become an inextricable hallmark of Salt Lake culture.

Wait? What’s that you say? Dizzy, Bird, Miles, Cannonball and Trane hadn’t become beloved, adopted sons throughout Utah? Oh. News to me. Well, then, I guess I have no idea why Utah’s execs didn’t just change the team name and then base their new logo on whatever noun they chose. And you’re also telling me this was the best new logo they could come up with? Hmmm. That’s actually somehow even harder to believe. That thing looks like a color-by-number Girl Scout badge.

Fortunately, seven years later, Utah again realized it was time for change. Have no fear; they would continue to use an eerily similar mountain/giant block letter logo to that of their Rocky Mountain rivals, but, additionally, they would get rid of several unnecessary colors and lose the patently absurd motion lines/gradient on the lettering.

The result is their new, simple and attractive four-color logo, which, if you replaced the word “Jazz” with the word “Utah,” would make a really nice souvenir refrigerator magnet available for $3.99 in the Deer Valley Ski Resort Gift Shop.

The perfect stocking stuffer for Grandma.

* This was intended to appear as “heavily bearded,” but a typo resulted in “heavenly bearded.” Regardless of whether it was a Freudian slip or a Ouija board-type intervention by some bearded Nordic god, I’m not tempting fate and changing it. Those dudes have lightning.

Some claim that using the spur to form the “u” is awkward and uninventive. But when I look at that spur, I don’t see the uninspired labor of a marketing intern: I see a thoughtful statement on the relationship between mimetic rationality, semiotics and sport.

And let’s be honest: they’re helped out by the fact that, no matter how you combine them, black and white can only look so tacky.

Personally, I much preferred our fiesta colors logo. The Alamodome used to look like the color fairy took a giant shit at halfcourt. It captured the kind of brazen campiness that was only possible during the 90s.

Graydon Gordian writes about the Spurs at 48 Minutes of Hell, the San Antonio affiliate blog of ESPN’s TrueHoop Network, and contributes his thoughts on leaguewide issues at Hardwood Paroxysm.

Remember that one All-Star Game in the Alamodome during the heydey of the Spurs fiesta-colors era where they wore those hideous uniforms with the peppers on them? That was awesome.

All sorts of awesome.

Was a horse supposed to intimidate opponents? Not unless Mr. Ed is taking the court with Joe Dumars and Grant Hill. But maybe the 90s’ designers were just overwhelmed when trying to do one better than the Pistons original logo from when they were in Fort Wayne? How do you top Tin Can Man dribbling the basketball? I guess you go horse.

Thankfully, just about the time Dumars took over as GM, the Pistons went back to an update of their classic logo and colors. My guess is that this was because Dumars wanted to exercise the demons as part of his ongoing therapy sessions related to wearing maroon-and-teal road jerseys. In fact, to this day, I still blame Grant Hill’s nagging injures on the stress of wearing the teal.

So, yes, the current logo is just a basketball. But tie in the colors of America, and we have a winner. You can’t go very wrong with the current configuration of the red ball with the blue-and-white accents and their customized font with that has “Detroit” a bit more understated than “Pistons” inside the ball. As for their alternate logo, you can’t get much simpler than a giant P.

So although it took some time to get to what they are wearing on the court today, they did. And Pistons fans are thankful.

Speaking of, anyone want to buy a pristine, maroon-and-teal Stacey Augmon jersey on the cheap?

Natalie Sitto writes about the Pistons at Need4Sheed and, as is immediately apparent on her site, she knows a thing or two about logos and design. Though she is sad that the Sheed era has come to a close in Detroit, you can rest assured that her loyalties remain entirely with the Pistons.

This is how bad NBA logos are: The most boring logo in the League — and, perhaps, the history of sports — nearly cracked the top ten.

Before I do that search, let me tell you one thing — I feel that Allen Iverson’s 2001 trip to the NBA Finals is forever tainted because of the logo the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers had at that time. It was, if I remember, the big, swooshy-ball, overly-drawn thing that was all part of that trend — the one where the Pistons had an angry, teal horsey on their jerseys.

I like to lift weights.

Here’s the thing — the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers had one of the classically simple looks back in Dr. J’s early-80s days. It said, in that basic “sports-stitching font,” these exact and undeniable words:

“Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers”

Then on the back, it would have the player’s full name and their phone number in case they wanted to get some girlfriends to have fun with at dancing parties.

Anyway, time to hit Google for my hard work. brb.

Yeah, I have no idea — the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers website says they’re using some amalgamated version of the graphical thing, but they have their old-school retro logo on the page header of their basketball team website. [Ed note: They are indeed using the old one again now.]

What do you think about the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers logo on a scale of one to ten, with 10 being, “it’s okay,” 1 being, “I like it,” and 5 being, “it’s great.”

Also, when was the last time you were on an airplane ride and why.

Brian Spaeth is the former writer of YAYsports! NBA, and the star and writer of Who Shot Mamba?, a broadband motion picture debuting October 13 on Koldcast.tv. He is also the author of two novels, including the epic Prelude to a Super Airplane. He no longer uses question marks.

The Hawks could learn a lot about admitting a collossal mistake and embracing retro from the Sixers.

I have always hated their current logo. It is an ugly triangle with absolutely no whimsy. It is the least fun thing I have ever seen. It is an imitation art-deco clusterfuck of a logo with harsh lines, jagged edges and unnecessary complexity. The current Knicks logo was actually the perfect logo for the disjointed teams put forth by Scott Layden and Isiah Thomas, but that’s not exactly a good thing.

The Knicks logo has actually had two major revisions. It was once a fun but confusing drawing of a Knickerbocker, which is both a descriptor of the Dutch settlers who discovered New York and the type of pants that they wore. Is that silly? Of course it is. Not silly enough to change when you consider that there aren’t many lakes in Los Angeles, but the team did change it in 1963. Oh well . . .

The next revision of the Knick logo was the charming “parachute” design for the 1964-65 season. It was an extreme change from the previous logo and color scheme, which I always have problems with, but you can’t deny that it is a quality logo. The parachute gets more love because it is associated with the greatest success in the team’s history. Why did they decide to change this logo in the summer after Pat Riley’s team almost beat a far superior Bulls team in 1992? I suspect that the change was in the works well before that fun ’92 playoff run as a sort of karma-shift from the depressing Stu Jackson/John McLeod teams, but the plan probably should have been abandoned after Pat Riley proved that the only real way to change the culture of a team is to run it well. Oh well . . .

Please allow me to digress for a moment into my family history so that I can explain to you what I expect from a sports team logo. Once you understand my point of view, I hope that you will hate the current Knick logo as I do.

My grandpa, who died when I was eight years old, played semipro baseball and basketball in the 1930s for a team called the Astoria Arrows. He was one of my favorite people of all time (as a grandfather should be) and, as such, I would be clad head-to-toe right now in Astoria Arrows merchandise if I could find it anywhere. People would ask me what that archery-themed logo was on my hat and then I’d tell them about Al “Big Maxy” Drews, how I have a scrapbook at home of clips mentioning him in Queens newspapers, including one with the headline “Drews Sinks One” that mentions his timely “slam shot” as the highlight of game in which the winning team scored something like 20 points. The person who asked me about that logo might not care about the lengthy answer that I would give them, but the joy of talking about my grandpa one more time would make any money that I spent on Arrows paraphernalia a very worthy investment. Unless, of course, they happened to have changed the logo . . .

If the Astoria Arrows logo was changed in 1963, and again in 1992, then it would be a tad difficult to muster much emotion when I placed their cap upon my head:

“Hey, Ken, what’s that mysterious logo on your hat?” a passerby would ask.
“Well, friend, it’s actually a semipro team that my grandfather played for in the 1930s,” I would answer.
“Cool,” the passerby would say.
“Only they wore different colors,” I would add.
“Oh.”
“And the arrow faced the other direction.”
“Right.”
“And the font for the team name was different.”
“That’s great, Ken. I’m going to go now.”

Sounds like a fun exchange, huh?

It is just laundry, folks. It is a tired and trite axiom at this point, but all we root for is the laundry on the players’ backs. A sport is ephemeral and the men wearing the laundry change. We root for that laundry because it connects our past to our future. I want Charles Oakley to have a connection to Dave Debusschere. I want the team that my grandpa watched on WWOR back in the day (for free!) to have a connection to the career of Danilo Galinari and Wilson Chandler. I want any connection to my grandpa that I can get. The players change, but leave the laundry the same.

So go ahead and rank the Knicks logo low, Jared. It sucks for one of the oldest teams in the sport, playing in its most famous arena in its biggest market, to have a middling ranking…but it’s a freaking triangle. Give the Knick logo the C-minus that it deserves. How could you rank it higher? It was created in 1992 and was five years out of date even back then. It’s not the logo of the 1970 team (one of the sport’s most memorable title winners) or the logo Willis Reed had on his warm-ups when he limped out of the tunnel in 1970. The triangle isn’t the logo of the team that suited up Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton as the NBA’s first black player in 1950.

Who needs a logo with a connection to the “Knickerbocker” era of Sweetwater, Dick McGuire and Harry Galatin? Who needs a connection to Willis Reed, Clyde Frazier, Dave Debusschere, Dick Barnett, Bill Bradley, Black Jesus and the other men who wore the “parachute”? Who needs a logo with a glorious past when you have one that was on the towel Charles Smith used to hide his face in shame after getting four point-blank shots blocked by smaller players in the 1993 conference finals?

Oh well . . .

Kenneth Paul Drews co-hosts the FreeDarko Presents: The Disciples of Clyde Podcast along with the ever-loquacious, never-salacious Dan Filowitz. Ken also writes about the NBA on the DOC website and can often be found having recurring nightmares about Isiah Thomas.

Fun Fact: If you type “comical failure” into Google, it asks Did you mean: Charles Smith

Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my father! Prepare to die!

HELLO! MY NAME IS INIGO MONTOYA! YOU KILLED MY FATHER! PREPARE TO DIE!

Zach Harper writes on the NBA for TalkHoops, Hardwood Paroxysm and Cowbell Kingdom. He also can be heard on The Weekly Fix podcast as well as The 8th Seed podcast. You may also know him from such BTPH collaborations as Talking Hoops with TalkHoops and that one epic White Men Can’t Jump quotathon. In his spare time, he occasionally takes a nap.

LeBron is not a great fool, so he can clearly not become a pariah by abandoning his hometown team. But Danny Ferry knows that LeBron is not a great fool and has thus not gone to great lengths to surround him with great talent, so he can clearly not choose to remain in Cleveland.

The inescapable reality that one team will win and another will lose might naturally compel a team to select an identity well suited for regular conflict. Raptors that will eviscerate you. Grizzlies that will gouge out your eyes and rip off your limbs. Warriors that will, uh, be good at war on you. Bullets that will be shot into you. Wizards that will cast spells and speak with British accents. (Don’t front: Merlin and Gandalf are kind of badass, even if Harry Potter sucks.) Hornets that sting. Bulls that stampede. Rockets that explode.

Some teams get it. Other teams don’t. Denver is one of them.

Nuggets, after all, are supposed to be like nuggets of gold. (I think.) That’s not scaring anyone — unless the team plans on throwing gold at its opponents, which would be colossally stupid and exorbitantly expensive. Rather than girding for battle, the Nuggets might prefer running for the hills. Literally. Just look at that logo. Sure, the colors are cool, especially when the team rocks those not-quite-navy, third-color joints with the gold lettering and the baby-blue trim. And yes, that light blue nicely sets in relief all of the crazy tattoos. But that said, Denver’s logo conveys the message, “We’d rather be panning for gold in the Rockies, whether or not that’s even possible at this point.” In effect, these are the people whom the Nuggets consider peers. Not so intimidating. And, to be frank, the franchise has a history of this.

The Denver logo seems like more of a tourism ad or an attempt at lifestyle branding than a basketball crest. The Denver lifestyle: Enjoy the snow, live all glossy and flossy, and maybe shoot some hoops. Just don’t harsh the mellow.

If there were ever another Die Hard movie, it could likely be set among the cartoonishly inviting peaks of the Nuggets’ logo. There would surely be a moment when John McClane, imperiled by terrorists and a devastating avalanche, found time to complain, “Come out to the slopes, we’ll get together, have a few laughs….”

That’s good for a movie, but not for basketball. The Nuggets logo really fails a utilitarian analysis. It is pretty, though. I don’t even ski, and it makes me want to be out there, in the crisp air with the beautiful people and their overpriced outdoorsman gear.

Joey writes about hip hop, politics, sports and life at Straight Bangin’ and waxes poetic on the NBA at FreeDarko. Sometimes, he can be heard on the FreeDarko Presents: The Disciples of Clyde Podcast. Other times, he can be found at the library pursuing higher education and listening to Dilla.

Welcome to Colorado: We have mountains. They sure are … mountainous. Gold? No, we no longer have any gold. Wait. Where are you going? Have you heard about the snow?

I’m told that this is supposed to be a shield with a basketball passing through a red hoop — but there is no net on this hoop. Not even a chain one. Maybe the red hoop was supposed to express that the Nets are “in the red” financially and that’s why they’re trying to move from the meadows of New Jersey to the streets of Brooklyn. No wonder people don’t come to the IZOD Center. No wonder people don’t wear Nets paraphernalia. They don’t understand what the hell this has to do with the name of the team.

This looks more like a scene from outer space. It looks more like Saturn than it does anything to do with an actual net. It reminds me of Event Horizon. I feel like somewhere in the depths of that shield, Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill are battling it out for control of the space ship. Or maybe this ring around the shield is more like a scene from the movie Contact. But whatever terrible movie this logo evokes in the minds of the confounded people who view it, the fact remains that this in no way reminds anybody of an actual net.

They should have stayed with the stupid little NJ logo that had a basketball-looking boil at the top of the J. At least that said something about the franchise/state of residence. This just has a hoop with no net and nothing signifying anything about the state of New Jersey.

A picture of a mall would have been much more apropos.

Zach Harper writes on the NBA for TalkHoops, Hardwood Paroxysm and Cowbell Kingdom. He also can be heard on The Weekly Fix podcast as well as The 8th Seed podcast. You may also know him from such BTPH collaborations as Talking Hoops with TalkHoops and that one epic White Men Can’t Jump quotathon. In his spare time, he occasionally takes a nap.

Whenever I think “turbl space movie,” I think “Sunshine.” After “Manos: The Hands of Fate” and “The Wicker Man” (2006), that’s the worst movie ever made. There’s no way the same guy directed “Trainspotting” and “28 Days Later…” I will never believe it.

No, seriously, I hate the Lakers. Growing up in Northern California, I learned two things: (1) Los Angeles sucks, and (2) someday, the big one will come, and Southern California will fall off the continent into the ocean, so get under your desks, it’s time for another earthquake drill.

Then, in my early twenties, I moved to Boston, which only allowed my natal hatred of Los Angeles sports teams to flourish and grow. So for my contribution to The NBA Logo Ranking Project, I was prepared to offer a couple hundred words of seething Laker hatred directed at their logo with some type of joke about the number of great lakes v. great sex offenders currently located in Los Angeles.

But I have studied the Lakers logo for the last couple days, and it has grudgingly earned my respect.

As you probably already know, the Lakers played their first twelve years in Minneapolis. If you were unclear about this, the Minneapolis Lakers logo is very illustrative. See, there’s the state of Minnesota, and there’s a star right where Minneapolis is located. And then it says “MINNEAPOLIS,” just in case you didn’t understand the placement of the star. I’m surprised the artist did not painstakingly draw ten thousand lakes, lest we didn’t catch the clever pun that was the team’s nickname.

Then the Lakers moved to Los Angeles where their nickname made no sense. Some half-wit designed a logo with streaky lines and a swooping watery ‘R’ and then kicked back to wait for the Jazz to move to Utah so that people would forget how nonsensical the Laker name was by comparison. Objectively, this logo is lame. But the longer they use it, unchanged with only minor alterations, the more vastly superior it becomes.

When I look at the Lakers logo, it says: “This is our logo. We’re the Lakers. What’s that in our logo? It’s a basketball. Why? Because we’re the basketball team from Los Angeles. What’s our mascot? What do you mean? You think we’re concerned that our team name has no obvious personification, and we’re going to have some kind of Steeley McBeam debacle? Please. Our mascot is Kobe Bryant’s middle finger. What’s that? You’ve noticed that some idiot named Bob Short decided that one of our primary colors should be purple? You think that’s kind of gay? Let me refer you to our mascot. We’re the Lakers. Fuck you.”

You have to respect that. Or, you know, if you’re the Clippers, you rip it off and make it suck.

Kelly Mulligan is Northern Californian-turned-Masshole who lives in Medford, which she now calls Medfahd while drinking High Life and writing about the Red Sox at Don’t Even Quit. As of this writing, she is indeed still participating.

NO WAY CHEIF. Lebrons midle finga is WAAAAY betta. Kobe wouldn’t evn have a middel finga if it wsn’t fer shaq. LOOOL!!! M-V-P!!! M-V-P!!! M-V-P!!! (And, yes, my mom drank while pregnant. Why do you ask?)

But if you ever wondered what Garfield would be like on meth, look no further. You think you hate Mondays? This dude tears Mondays a new asshole. And then he crashes on your couch for three days, pissing himself and moaning about how the Russians stole his 10-speed. And you keep asking him to tell funny stories about how he’s a cat but he LOVES lasagna, only all he does is threaten you with a Rambo knife that he keeps in his boot. And the only “Jons” that come around aren’t some lovable, goofy owner so much as scary guys with too many piercings who really like the feel of a cat’s tongue on places no cat’s tongue should ever go. And after that, he always disappears for days at a time until the cops find him punching your car because “it was mocking him.” Then you have to bail him out of jail or risk having your house burnt down again.

Oh, that crazy cat.

So, anyway, like I said, it’s a pretty generic logo.

Morgan O’Rourke is an editor and writer whose love of basketball is directly proportional to the success of the Knicks. As a result, he misses Latrell Sprewell a little more than he should.

Odie is fucked.

• This logo is a flaming ball, something I’ve been adamantly avoiding since going through puberty at age 22.
• H8 U mid-90s.
• Modeled after Lisa Simpson’s haircut, this logo hasn’t been relevant in 10 years.
• No basketball has ever had that coloring
• No sphere has ever had that shading.
• More like Soenix Phuns.
• Talk about “dry” heat. (Dry meaning “lacking aesthetic qualities.”)
• More oranges than something with a lot of oranges has. Which is probably too many.
• More like Soenix Phuns, AM I RIGHT?
• The grey sucks.
• The sun doesn’t have a shadow because it’s the sun.

Trey Kerby writes on the NBA for The Blowtorch and Ball Don’t Lie. He is also writing a basketball book and enjoys consulting, beard growth dramatizations and solving the financial crisis.

]]> http://www.bothteamsplayedhard.net/2009/08/27/the-nba-logo-ranking-project-19-phoenix-suns/feed/ 3 http://www.bothteamsplayedhard.net/2009/08/27/the-nba-logo-ranking-project-20-sacramento-kings/ http://www.bothteamsplayedhard.net/2009/08/27/the-nba-logo-ranking-project-20-sacramento-kings/#comments Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:53:24 +0000 Jared Wade http://www.bothteamsplayedhard.net/?p=5122 I don’t have much to say about the Kings logo. It’s not as bad as some of the prior ones, but it certainly isn’t good. And not only is it worse than the franchise’s old one, but it’s just got too much going on. Lances, a crown, a basketball, a triumph banner and two overly stylized yet mismatched fonts? Probably a bit much. In other news, knights joust, kings do not.

And…that’s all I got.

So rather than forcing it, I’m just going to Kool Aid Man the fourth wall and let you all in on the behind-the-scenes “discussion” that kicked off this whole project like two weeks ago. Since Zach Harper writes Cowbell Kingdom, I asked him for his views on Sacto’s logo. And since I’m rather lazy, I also asked him if he would write a couple of these NBA Logo Ranking Project posts for me so that I could have some extra free time to sit back relax, catch a contact, sip my cognac and wash this money through this laundromat.

This is the Gmail chat that transpired.

Zach Harper to me      show details Aug 14 (13 days ago)

Johnny Logo Designer must have been a closet goth, but you’ve got to at least give him credit for convincing the organization that the obvious bloody fang and stake motif was actually an abstract rocket or something. He was probably a big hit at the local Hot Topic for pulling that off.

The problem is that abstract only works when you’re a team like the Knicks whose name doesn’t mean anything. When you’re the Rockets, you use — wait for it — a fucking rocket. It’s not rocket science (wocka wocka). About the only good aspect of their logo is that they didn’t include the a basketball in the image. It amazes me that so many teams have found this necessary considering that the use of a basketball is implied by the fact that they are, surprise, a basketball team.

It’s good thing that the Twilight books didn’t come out until a few years after Houston debuted this logo or someone might have a spooky lawsuit on their hands — although the Buffy the Vampire Slayer people might want to consult an attorney since I wouldn’t put it past this franchise to “bite” something from pop culture. I mean, do you think the Rockets name was a coincidence when the team started in San Diego in the late 1960s during the height of the space program? It’s not like naming your team, say, the Raptors because Jurassic Park was number one at the box office, but still.

In the end, we are dealing with a basketball team logo here. It’s not supposed to be fine art. And if you really think about it, the vampire logo might actually be appropriate. After all, Yao and T-Mac are pretty much the living dead.

And just like their careers, it’s probably time to drive a stake into this logo’s heart.

Dig it.

Morgan O’Rourke is editor in chief of Risk Management magazine. When he’s not listening to music, he enjoys swearing at his television while watching the Mets and Knicks.

Unlike True Blood, there will be no naked Anna Paquin at Rockets games.

Initially, there was an idea to revive the name of old Toronto team, the Huskies, but management realized that the logo would have to be similar to the Timberwolves one, so a national contest was called to set the name for a new franchise. The winning names in the contest were dominated by animal names and included the Hogs (Toronto is nicknamed Hogtown) and the Beavers, so the choice of Raptors actually wasn’t that bad after all.

The plan backfired, however, when Raptors rewarded us fans with a 21-61 season and the nickname “The Craptors” was soon adopted by critics. The logo didn’t help very much. Although it describes the name of the team well enough (and it’s not a Hog!), it doesn’t look very serious, nor does it really show the fighting spirit. It looks like something you could have had as a child — remember the dinosaur collection on your shelf? When you grew up, they started looking funny instead of scary and you gave them to a charity store without sparing them a second look.

There is also the alternate logo, the mixture of a basketball and a paw, which may have a little more substance to it, although it is way more simple. It still fits in the concept of connecting a Raptor to the sport of basketball but doesn’t have the comical taste of a main logo. And looks better on the jerseys.

Kat B writes on the Raptors and the NBA at large for Foot on the Line and blogs about the NFL at Heels in the Huddle. She also has a Jumpman tattoo.

The Toronto Raptors: A Steve Spielberg Joint.

I get it, the dude is supposed to be a warrior wielding a thunderbolt. And since I didn’t read comic books, the only guy I know who threw thunderbolts was Zeus. And Zeus was just a big ol’ whore … which I guess is fitting since both the Warriors and Too $hort represent Oakland.

But Blue Man Warrior isn’t prepared to throw the thunderbolt down from the heavens as Zeus did. No, he looks like he’s about to shank someone in the shower.

Then you have the Eyes Wide Shut mask. Boy, the artist really has a thing for Greek mythology/Stanley Kubrick flick carnal undertones. He or she probably nicknamed the rendered character Fidelio and spanks it to creepy piano music.

Which brings me to another issue. Dude has his shirt off. How many warriors go to war without protecting their vital organs? None that I know. Brendan Haywood would probably call this warrior a regular Stephon Marbury.

Yep, the Golden State Warriors logo pretty much sucks. And if you were wondering … yes, I think I can do better. I’m talking neon-colored arm tassels people. But hey, I guess the current version is better than the smiling, basketball-dribbling Native American that the franchise first used as a logo when it was in Philadelphia.

Kyle Weidie runs the Wizards blog Truth About It and has also written on the NBA for Bullets Forever. He can tell you in vivid detail what’s so fun about Tom Gugliotta and his favorite beverage is Tuff Juice.

What exactly was wrong with this logo? Or the RUN-TMC uniforms? Someone might have overthought this whole thing.

While we are at it, is there anything “magical” about it? I understand that the logo is supposed to be related to the Magic Kingdom at Disney World in Florida but, I repeat, where is the “magic” or any obvious link to Disney World? Are we to assume that the magic is in the stars trailing the basketball? Since when do stars equal magic? If you look at Orlando’s original logo, the organization kept the stars. And when they “changed” it, where was the change? It stayed basically the same except that the word Orlando is now atop the word Magic.

If you look at the Wizards’ logo, it is much more magical. Hey Orlando front office, try mixing in a wand, a top hat or even a deck of cards — anything would be more fitting than stars. Come on.

Let’s make it more appropriate.

I am going to throw out an idea for a redesign of Orlando’s logo and a name change. I suggest the Magic organization pay homage to the greatest magicians of all time. Doug Henning, David Copperfield and Penn and Teller could all be considered. But one magician stands head and shoulders above the rest: George Oscar Bluth aka GOB.

Who else can make yachts “disappear,” work with bow-tied seals, moonwalk while biting down on a knife and fill you with wonder as to where lighter fluid comes from? To him, a magic trick is no laughing matter — nor should it even be considered a trick at all, as he once informed his brother. “Illusion, Michael. A trick is something a whore does for money … or candy.”

With that being said, I present to you the new look Orlando logo and name. Finally a logo capturing the essence of magic and guaranteed to strike fear in opponents.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Orlando Illusions.

Jeff Garcia is a New York-based lawyer/blogger/podcaster who writes for Project Spurs and c0-hosts the Spurscast podcast along with Michael De Leon, who created the below graphic. In his spare time, Jeff enjoys quoting a puppet named Franklin and praying that Manu Ginobli’s ankle holds up for another 100-game season.

Stars representing magic? There’s not a lot of logic to it. It’s kind of like on a boat with “Women and children first.”

Ultimately, all you need to know about this thing is the description that Chris Creamer gave it on his website for identification purposes:

A wolf head next to a row of pine trees

Bill Simmons, who famously failed in his attempt to become Minnesota’s GM this summer, has a theory that every sports team should hire a VP of Common Sense whose sole role is to give a final sign-off on every decision before it’s made. It’s a solid concept, especially in this context. Because I’m pretty sure if you walked into the VPCS’ office and said “Just FYI, we’re going with The Wolf Head Next to a Row of Pine Trees for the new logo,” she would tell you that, no, you ought not do that.

Additional ridicule should be reserved for the fact that Minny’s relatively new alternate logo not only looks like it got it’s picture taken in front of the same JC Penny “Basketball Stars” photo backdrop as Emo Horse, but it also appears that the designer just downloaded the Amarok logo, opened it in Photoshop, hit “Edit –> Transform –> Flip Horizontal” and then took an early lunch.

Maybe it wasn’t just laziness though. I mean, I’m not a branding optimization consultancy expert, but I would think that half the point of having two logos is so that you can appeal to two different demographics. So this way, Minnesota captures both the Bob Ross fan demo with its main logo and the brazen thievery aficionado demo with the other. I’m pretty sure they don’t run in the same circles. I’ve been to the chat rooms.

Bob Ross called this landscape “Happy Trees and the Mad Dog.”