NBA Changes 2019-20

[NunsDupreAllDay]

54 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

There's an argument that can be made as to whether or not Brooklyn really is the "inner city" anymore, but that can go off topic quickly, so I'll give it to you. Thing is the Nets play in Brooklyn. They're part of that locale.

 

Again, in what ways are the Clippers LA's "inner city" team? They play in the same building as the Lakers!

 

I really didn't want to get into this whole Clippers uniform argument, but I do have to point out that being in the same building currently doesn't necessarily mean that they cannot represent different areas of the city.

 

For a little history on the subject which you may or may not already know, the Clippers moved from SD to LA in 1984 and played their games at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in Expansion Park. Expansion Park just so happens to be 10 miles from Compton and less than 2 miles from South Central LA. One could argue that this proximity to these areas drew a different fan base to the Clippers than the Lakers, who already had an established fan base and were known to be very "Hollywood" with the Showtime era.

 

The Jets and Giants share a stadium and the Jets have always been known to represent Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island, whereas the Giants are usually associated with Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island. This clearly stems from the fact that the Jets played in Shea stadium for 20 years and the Giants did the same at Yankee Stadium. But it's that history that plays a large part into why their fan bases are what they are today, even though they currently share a stadium.

 

In Italian Soccer, AC Milan and Inter Milan share a stadium and they have a VERY different fan base. The same could be said for Roma and Lazio.

 

I get your point, and I would have to agree with you that the Clippers don't necessarily scream "Compton" at all, or even more so than the Lakers. I just don't think citing the shared arena is a good reason why.

 

 

 

[IceCap]

Just now, NunsDupreAllDay said:

I get your point, and I would have to agree with you that the Clippers don't necessarily scream "Compton" at all, or even more so than the Lakers. I just don't think citing the shared arena is a good reason why.

Did they ever court Compton or South Central LA when they played in the Sports Arena? No. And since doing nothing of the sort they've moved to the Staples Centre. I'd say they could claim those areas if they had marketed to them made an effort to make them "their" team in contrast to the Hollywood-esque Lakers, but they didn't.

 

And for people to assert such a "Lakers are Hollywood, Clippers are Compton" dynamic exists today, decades after the fact, is revisionist history at best and a lie at worst.

[NunsDupreAllDay]

2 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

Did they ever court Compton or South Central LA when they played in the Sports Arena? No. And since doing nothing of the sort they've moved to the Staples Centre. I'd say they could claim those areas if they had marketed to them made an effort to make them "their" team in contrast to the Hollywood-esque Lakers, but they didn't.

I still feel like you're missing the point. I was simply pointing out that it's a fallacy to cite a shared arena as a reason a franchise cannot brand a certain way.

 

For what it's worth, in 1984 the Clippers branded themselves as "the peoples' team" and charged their ticket prices at about half of what the Lakers did. 

[IceCap]

1 minute ago, NunsDupreAllDay said:

I still feel like you're missing the point. I was simply pointing out that it's a fallacy to cite a shared arena as a reason a franchise cannot brand a certain way.

No, I get your point.

I brought up them sharing a building with the Lakers because unlike New York's NFL teams? They didn't do much to establish themselves prior to moving into the same building. It's VERY hard for you to carve out your own distinct geographic niche when you play in the same building as your in-town rivals. You need to have a footprint in the markets you're aiming for to pull it off. The Clippers? They failed to make much of a mark on Compton or South Central LA before moving to Stables. Which makes the retroactive association of them with these areas in the present (after NO ONE was making them for decades of them playing in Staples) disingenuous. 

 

5 minutes ago, NunsDupreAllDay said:

For what it's worth, in 1984 the Clippers branded themselves as "the peoples' team" and charged their ticket prices at about half of what the Lakers did. 

In line with what I said above? It obviously wasn't enough, considering how forgotten the Clippers were when they moved into Staples.

 

@DG_Now brought up a good point earlier in this thread that he sort of touched on in his last post. That this Clippers "reinvention" or "resurgence" is going to resonate with trendy white guys "wearing retro Clippers gear for a retro brand that never existed." I'm paraphrasing, but I think this is the problem many people have with this look.

There may have been a time when the Clippers could have been the "Compton and South Central LA" team but their cheap (and racist) owner and pitiful performance (and lacklustre marketing) led to them being less then an afterthought. 

Then they move into Staples- again, having failed to have much of a footprint in Compton and South Central LA- and continue to fail to make much headway carving out a niche. And only now are people pretending that a "Compton/South Central LA/inner city Clippers" identity ever existed. It's shallow.

 

I understand WHY it's a popular idea. People feel like there should be a "Hollywood/inner city" divide among LA's basketball teams, but it's revisionist history to suggest the Clippers ever successfully branded themselves as that until 2019.

[keynote]

10 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

Did they ever court Compton or South Central LA when they played in the Sports Arena? No. And since doing nothing of the sort they've moved to the Staples Centre. I'd say they could claim those areas if they had marketed to them made an effort to make them "their" team in contrast to the Hollywood-esque Lakers, but they didn't.

 

And for people to assert such a "Lakers are Hollywood, Clippers are Compton" dynamic exists today, decades after the fact, is revisionist history at best and a lie at worst.

 

To clarify: the Clippers' alts aren't marketing to Compton; the Clippers are marketing "Compton" to their broader fan base. That is, they're marketing nostalgia for late '80s/early '90s Black/Latinx LA -- edgy enough to be cool; yet a distant enough memory to not represent a present threat. 

 

And that's fine. As a "little brother" team, they're looking for a brand differentiator. And they're not the first little brother team to dip into hip hop culture to do it. Cf. the White Sox's shift to the Black caps, just in time for hip hop heads and poseurs of the era to add it to their collection of Raiders caps.

 

 

And, of course, the Nets' entire brand is built around '90s Brooklyn hip-hop.

[IceCap]

2 minutes ago, keynote said:

To clarify: the Clippers' alts aren't marketing to Compton; the Clippers are marketing "Compton" to their broader fan base. That is, they're marketing nostalgia for late '80s/early '90s Black/Latinx LA -- edgy enough to be cool; yet a distant enough memory to not represent a present threat. 

So basically this...

 

9 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

@DG_Now brought up a good point earlier in this thread that he sort of touched on in his last post. That this Clippers "reinvention" or "resurgence" is going to resonate with trendy white guys "wearing retro Clippers gear for a retro brand that never existed." I'm paraphrasing, but I think this is the problem many people have with this look.

 

 

2 minutes ago, keynote said:

 

And that's fine. As a "little brother" team, they're looking for a brand differentiator.

I suppose. My issue is the idea of retroactively insisting the Clippers were always "the inner city" team to the Lakers being "Hollywood's team." They weren't. Not really.

[keynote]

4 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

So basically this...

 

Didn't see your more recent post. I don't think it's as cynical as you make it out to be.  All brands position themselves using external reference points. 

4 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

 

 

I suppose. My issue is the idea of retroactively insisting the Clippers were always "the inner city" team to the Lakers being "Hollywood's team." They weren't. Not really.

The Clippers aren't asserting that -- at least, nowhere I've seen. 

[IceCap]

2 minutes ago, keynote said:

The Clippers aren't asserting that -- at least, nowhere I've seen. 

I was referring to people in the thread, not the Clippers themselves. Though if they did it wouldn't be the biggest lie a sports team ever told (see Nationals, Washington; "Founded 1905" patch).

 

3 minutes ago, keynote said:

Didn't see your more recent post. I don't think it's as cynical as you make it out to be.  All brands position themselves using external reference points.

I think I need to clarify something. If the Clippers want to do the 90s Compton thing then all the power to them. My point was originally in defence of @Still MIGHTY's argument that this doesn't work for the Clippers and isn't authentic. And I'm expressing why I feel that's accurate.

[tajmccall]

Newspaper really is dead.

 

 

[Denver_The_Sinaloa]

34 minutes ago, tajmccall said:

Newspaper really is dead.

 

 

the Boomers have pitchforks outside your house 

[d11king]

1 hour ago, Ice_Cap said:

So basically this...

 

 

 

I suppose. My issue is the idea of retroactively insisting the Clippers were always "the inner city" team to the Lakers being "Hollywood's team." They weren't. Not really.

Clippers are San Diego’s team lol. 

[Denver_The_Sinaloa]

4 minutes ago, d11king said:

Clippers are San Diego’s team lol. 

if they were San Diego’s team they'd play there. The Clippers can be the urban team and the Lakers can be the LA darling

[DG_ThenNowForever]

1 hour ago, Ice_Cap said:

I was referring to people in the thread, not the Clippers themselves. Though if they did it wouldn't be the biggest lie a sports team ever told (see Nationals, Washington; "Founded 1905" patch).

 

I think I need to clarify something. If the Clippers want to do the 90s Compton thing then all the power to them. My point was originally in defence of @Still MIGHTY's argument that this doesn't work for the Clippers and isn't authentic. And I'm expressing why I feel that's accurate.

 

And that's where I am.

 

For better or for worse, this is "Clippers" to me:

 

By and large, those Clippers teams were not very good. However, that doesn't mean they didn't look very good -- because they had an awesome uniform!

 

And if they want to tap into a currently niche look that appeals to their core audience of hipsters and contrarians, they already had a built-in yacht rock look. If the Lakers are the team of Nipsy Hussle, why can't the Clips be the team of Seals and Crofts?

 

[Wings]

Or they could be the Seattle Supersonics if Crazylegs Balmer can't get his arena built thanks to Doofus Dolan. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Just now, Wings said:

Or they could be the Seattle Supersonics if Crazylegs Balmer can't get his arena built thanks to Doofus Dolan. 

 

If that happens, watch how fast I change my tune on Kawhi and PG.

[d11king]

51 minutes ago, Denver_The_Sinaloa said:

if they were San Diego’s team they'd play there. The Clippers can be the urban team and the Lakers can be the LA darling

That’s not how things are working out here man lol. Lakers are the urban team. They are the boujee’s team. They are everything LA. 

[d11king]

Does anyone know what happened with the sock designs the league used to do with Stance? I remember teams having sock designs to go with their uni’s, does anyone know why they don’t do it anymore?

[upperV03]

11 minutes ago, d11king said:

Does anyone know what happened with the sock designs the league used to do with Stance? I remember teams having sock designs to go with their uni’s, does anyone know why they don’t do it anymore?

The contract with Stance ended when Nike became the league’s apparel provider. In addition to the uniforms, the socks are all Nike now. Nike does actually make team-specific sock designs to go along with the City Editions, and as of this year the Classic Editions as well. Plus, the standard sock design is available in a bunch of different color ways, including some team-specific color ways.

[MilSox]

3 hours ago, keynote said:

And, of course, the Nets' entire brand is built around '90s Brooklyn hip-hop.

 

The Nets brand is a nod to the 1970s NYC subway system.

 

 

At most, you could argue that nostalgia for the 70s was an influence on Brooklyn rappers in the 90s, but it's not hard to see what really inspired the Nets brand.

[MilSox]

As far as the Clippers... I don't blame them for doing something the Lakers couldn't necessarily do, nor should they. Especially when the "Straight Outta Compton" era coincided with "Showtime," which the Clippers were still around in LA for. I don't see it as tge Clippers rewriting history so much as representing an era of LA's history that transcended and even influenced sports.