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Posts tagged as:
Wolves
“Our generation’s Bird, Parrish, and McHale?” asks waxandmilk.
Indubitably. (via @jeskeets)
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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)
1:29 PM me: how you feel about the Kings logo?
Zach: I hate the color purple
1:30 PM especially in sports
me: Oprah will be upset to hear that
Zach: Oprah will be upset to hear a lot of my opinions
i think the kings should go back to the red, white and blue days of the early 90s
not the powder blue
1:31 PM but the regular blue
so until they do that, the kings logo is dead to me
me: I see
1:32 PM well…with a lack of any other ideas and nothing happening in the NBA currently, I was about to do 30 posts ranking all the logos
1:33 PM just like 200-300 words of blathering on and bad jokes — ya know, the regular BTPH stuff
you got 10 minutes to bang one out?
1:45 PM Zach: ya definitely
this is what the Kings should go back to
why did this go away?
1:46 PM me: not sure…I actually might sorta not hate the Kings new one too though…comparatively
I think I preliminarilly have it like 15th…that’s how bad most of these are
1:47 PM Zach: the one with the SK?
me: nah..this one
1:48 PM Zach: i’m not so sure about the jousting sticks
i would have liked some serfs asking for pittance at the bottom of the logo or something it’s actually pretty fun to pick these apart
me: yeah…I’m actually having a good time with it
you can write a few if you really have nothing better to do
god knows I don’t have 30 jokes in me
1:58 PM Zach: ya, i’ll do as many of these as you want
the nets one has nothing to do with an actual net
is has more to do with Saturn than a basketball net
1:59 PM me: wow…that’s amazing
didn’t even notice the stupidity in that
2:00 PM Zach: this may not be a reference you’re familiar with but the Wolves logo is reminding me of the smile of the mom of one of the Girls Next Door
she basically has no lips and is all teeth
it’s pretty dead on
2:01 PM me: is that the movie about the hot high school porno chick in suburbia? With Seth from Deadwood?
Elisa Dusk or Dunk something
Zach: no, the Hugh Heffner show
me: Douche Shoe maybe?
oh…
yeah…not particularly familiar with that one
Zach: Douche Shoe? hahahaha
2:02 PM me: no wait…it’s Elisha Cuthbert
isn’t there an Elisha Douche Shoe out there?
2:42 PM Zach: Doesn’t this look like Mike D’Antoni went into the witness protection program?
this one is so george michael bluth
3:13 PM me: hahaha…can’t wait until they play the Minnesota Moles
3:15 PM Zach: i guess i don’t know what a stag is because this looks like the chicago bucks to me
me: playing volleyball?
3:16 PM Zach: absolutely
greatest volleyball team of their time
3:17 PM me: These guys went the extra mile
http://www.sportslogos.net/logo.php?id=50393:18 PM Zach: pistons should definitely go back to the Tin Man
3:23 PM me: amazing. I like Foghorn Leghorn
and you gotta love the racism here
3:25 PM makes Chief Wahoo look like a historical photograph
3:26 PM Zach: I really miss the racism in logos
it’s a lost art
Alice Walker just unsubscribed from the TalkHoops RSS feed.
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The Toronto Raptors got their name and logo due to the popularity of Jurassic Park in the theaters. Since the velociraptors were the stars of the film, the front office designed a dinosaur dribbling a basketball to show that Toronto would be a fierce new franchise in the East and seduce all these teenage dino-crazies to buy tickets.
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.
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How do you mess up a wolf? It’s essentially a killer dog. I could find you probably 10,000 fifth graders with better murderous canine drawings on their Trapper Keepers than this Sherwood Forest landscape painting that the now-ousted Kevin McHale and company tried to pass off as a logo.
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.”
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(Photo by Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images)
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