NBA Monicker Carousel: NOLA & MIA added 2/6, PHX 2/7

[mcrosby 3,441]

Thanks to many, many franchise moves without new monickers the NBA has some teams that feel...displaced. Here's my attempt at getting things back to some semblance of sense. 

 

The most egregious, of course, are the LA Lakers. The Land of 10,000 Lakes should've held onto that name. I used the South Bay Lakers logo as a template, with a bit of cleaning up. I also made an oar/basketball secondary. As much as I loathe PJ Fleck, I could think of no better motto than "Row."

 

But the Timberwolves brand is pretty great. It doesn't deserve to be put down. It doesn't exactly make sense in LA, so the carousel continues to spin. Re-introducing the Toronto Huskies. I kept the most recent Toronto colors, made a few changes to the Timberwolves logo, and here you have it: 

 

Many more to come. Stay tuned. 

[mcrosby 3,441]

Oh, and as you may have noticed: I added a 4 point line because I'm 100% ready for that. 

[Brian in Boston 2,723]

Oh, this ought to be great!

 

[mcrosby 3,441]

And why would we give up on the dream of the 90s by getting rid of the Raptors monicker? Who else has a name that makes absolutely no sense AND has plenty of velociraptor fossils throughout the state? That's right, Utah. Land of NO JAZZ and dinos. I doubled down on their City Court and stuck with the Utah gradient. 

 

[Brian in Boston 2,723]

I suspected that the Raptors identity was going to be shifted to Utah, freeing up the Jazz brand to return to New Orleans. Hmmmmm... where might the Pelicans sobriquet wing? Someplace coastal. Miami? Could that up the Heat in Phoenix, sending the Suns to rise over LA's golden beaches, and freeing the Clippers to set sail for Boston or San Francisco?

Speaking of the Bay Area, Half Moon Bay is within 28 miles of San Francisco. Could the Golden State Mavericks pay homage to Northern California's big wave surf mecca? Elsewhere in NorCal, Sacramento is just a golden stone's throw away from Coloma, California - site of Sutter's Mill, birthplace of the California Gold Rush; could the Sacramento Nuggets strike gold? Maybe the Sacramento Grizzlies will stalk the Golden 1 Center? Might the Warriors "come out to play-ay!" in Brooklyn or New York? Will the Pistons moniker return to the state that birthed it, or will the Thunder of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway inspire a Hoosier hoops identity?

Enough, enough! There are so many possibilities that could spin out of your "carousel". The fun is in waiting to see what you get up to.

      

[mcrosby 3,441]

35 minutes ago, Brian in Boston said:

I suspected that the Raptors identity was going to be shifted to Utah, freeing up the Jazz brand to return to New Orleans. Hmmmmm... where might the Pelicans sobriquet wing? Someplace coastal. Miami? Could that up the Heat in Phoenix, sending the Suns to rise over LA's golden beaches, and freeing the Clippers to set sail for Boston or San Francisco?

Speaking of the Bay Area, Half Moon Bay is within 28 miles of San Francisco. Could the Golden State Mavericks pay homage to Northern California's big wave surf mecca? Elsewhere in NorCal, Sacramento is just a golden stone's throw away from Coloma, California - site of Sutter's Mill, birthplace of the California Gold Rush; could the Sacramento Nuggets strike gold? Maybe the Sacramento Grizzlies will stalk the Golden 1 Center? Might the Warriors "come out to play-ay!" in Brooklyn or New York? Will the Pistons moniker return to the state that birthed it, or will the Thunder of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway inspire a Hoosier hoops identity?

Enough, enough! There are so many possibilities that could spin out of your "carousel". The fun is in waiting to see what you get up to.

      

You've named a fair number that I hadn't considered, and some that I had. I'll leave the mystery up to you. I will say that I don't intend on this being a 30 team swap, probably closer to 10. Now that you've hit on some things I hadn't considered I may up the count a bit. 

[_DietDrPepper_ 4,314]

The courts are a bit out there but the logo swaps and updates are fantastic. 

 

I'm excited to see where this goes. 

[MDTrey4 63]

The only bit that could use work is the placement of the maple leaf in the Toronto Huskies. Swap the North Star with the maple leaf and consider using that vacated negative space to incorporate the CN Tower. I think it would make it look like a true Toronto concept instead of the T-Wolves + maple leaf

[DukeofChutney 56]

These are fantastic. I could totally see these as actual identities in a nickname-relocation situation.

 

And the colour pallets are absoutly spot on. The Huskies in particular is nothing short of perfect for the team.

[mcrosby 3,441]

12 hours ago, MDTrey4 said:

The only bit that could use work is the placement of the maple leaf in the Toronto Huskies. Swap the North Star with the maple leaf and consider using that vacated negative space to incorporate the CN Tower. I think it would make it look like a true Toronto concept instead of the T-Wolves + maple leaf

 

I did try this (admittedly I didn't put in a ton of effort) and the leaf really disrupted the whole flow of the ball. I may take another stab at it. 

[Brave-Bird 08 1,740]

About once a year I open a thread on these boards and I scream on the inside knowing I can’t possibly do anything as genius or great in quality and this is one of those times. This is such a fun and original idea and the execution is great. That’s a phenomenal look for Utah, and the Lakers court is awesome

[ChiCity95 52]

New Jersey Swamp Dragons version, please!

[LMU 7,631]

Is the flipping of the direction of the baseline text intentional? Typically the text faces the court and not the crowd.

[mcrosby 3,441]

16 hours ago, LMU said:

Is the flipping of the direction of the baseline text intentional? Typically the text faces the court and not the crowd.

 

Nope, i'm just a dum-dum. 

[jbird669 90]

These are wonderful. I really dig the Minnesota Lakers logo. 

[McCall 1,396]

On 2/1/2021 at 12:15 AM, ChiCity95 said:

New Jersey Swamp Dragons version, please!

I'm pretty sure he's just doing a carousel of currently existing teams. Since New Jersey has no team and there is currently no team named the Swamp Dragons, I would assume there will not be one.

 

Now that I am done empowering myself with false MOD-esty (see what I did there?) in your thread, mcrosby, this is an awesome idea that always seems to come up in a roundabout way (wink wink) whenever the discussion of NBA names and how they seem to fit better in locations other than where they reside. And if it wasn't for you being a self-admitted "dum-dum", I would have total faith in your continuation of these concepts has they are quite good.

[alexandre 98]

I follow all your threads, love these and find the 4 point line a neat touch. The full body Raptor is really cool and it works SO WELL with that mountain colour scheme. So many NBA logos are fairly uninspired, but the simple basketball/oar Lakers secondary would be in the upper tier if it were used.

[mcrosby 3,441]

Lakers > Minnesota, Timberwolves (Huskies) > Toronto, Raptors > Utah, Jazz > New Orleans

 

Stranger even than the Lakers keeping their name upon moving to LA is the Jazz keeping their name upon moving to Utah. Utah doesn't exactly exude the spirit of jazz, but NOLA sure does. I updated the classic Jazz logo with a new font and brought back purple. 

[mcrosby 3,441]

And with the Jazz in New Orleans the Pelicans will fly East to Miami, a perfect chance for Miami to embrace the Vice look full time. 

 

EDIT: Apparently I just can't get it through my head to have the baseline wordmarks in the right direction. To me, it just looks right this way. I'm in too deep now. I'm sticking with it. 

[Bomba Tomba 218]

4 hours ago, mcrosby said:

the Jazz keeping their name upon moving to Utah.

 

where they don't allow music.

 

Also, I wonder what Rockstar Games would think of the "Vice City" on the court.