Alternate Asian Leagues 2050 Part 2: Indian Pro Basketball

[Exceed_Idiot]

HELLO EVERYONE!

This is part 2 of my ongoing Alternate Asian Leagues series which I started with the Pro Liga India (which is still ongoing). The next sport I, as the god of this alternate 2050 timeline, am gonna do is Basketball.

The current situation with Basketball in India is that in 2023, two top-level basketball leagues were launched, the Indian National Basketball League and the Elite Pro Basketball League. This is kind of situation is common in Indian sports (ex: Soccer-Football, Volleyball) in which a private company starts their own league and attracts the top players while the federation embargoes the league and their players in favour of their weaker league. So as god, I decided to merge the leagues and create

INDIAN PRO BASKETBALL

A whole new league with:

• 30 teams
• North and South divisions
• Academy and developmental league setups
• A women's league
• Direct entry into Asia's premier club competition
• and more that would take too long to say

 

The logo consists of an italic IPB in the colors of the Indian tricolour with P being the central focus, as it resembles a hand holding a basketball, the basketball resembling the Ashoka Chakra.

The 30 color variants are for each team with the Left hand side being the North Division and the Right Hand side being the South Division.

Teams:

South Division

• Ahmedabad Aces
• Bengaluru Beast
• Bengaluru Bots
• Chennai Bulls
• Goa Glorioso
• Hyderabad Hawks
• Hyderabad Nizams
• Mumbai Maestros
• Mumbai Magic

North Division

• Bengal Baystars
• Bhopal Lakers
• Dehradun Devils
• Delhi Nationals
• Gurgaon Renegades
• Haryana Stags
• Jaipur Diamonds
• Kanpur Cagers
• Kashmir Knights
• Lucknow Nawabs
• NorthEast Rhinos

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Here is the first team, Ahmedabad Aces. The team on the Southern division, have 2 rivals from Gujarat. They were formed for the purpose of Ahmedabad's Olympic bid in 2036 but that fell apart. Ironically their only win came in 2036.

Ignore logo design explanations on the side, I wrote them all while being half-asleep.

 

Edited September 24, 2023 by Exceed_Idiot
Original pics were removed from original hosting site

[Exceed_Idiot]

The second team, the Bengal Baystars are based in the Northern division. They are rather popular amongst the division. They own a failing football (soccer) club in the PLI (Bay Blues FC).

Once again ignore the logo explanations for this one and all the others, I finished the logos for basketball before the football (soccer) ones, and those were done last year.

 

Spoiler

There was another version of the playoff jersey with 'Bengal' written in Bengali on it and some other slight differences, the play-off jerseys were meant to reflect local culture via the different languages. However, after showing it to a friend he did state it looked more 'Bangladeshi' than 'Bengali' (West Bengal), so I decided to go with the nameless version, though you can decide yourself if it looks better.

 

[Exceed_Idiot]

The third team and the second in the south division. They have a strong rivalry with their cross-city rivals, the Bengaluru Bots, with the Beast having won more League titles but the Bots having more wins. They were originally gonna be a continuation of the original UBA team but the ownership ended up due to a split in which club (Bengaluru United or Bengaluru FC) should have shares. So the Beast have the original Green home as their alternate jersey.

[Exceed_Idiot]

The fourth team and the third in the south division. They have a strong rivalry with their cross-city rivals, the Bengaluru Beast, with the Beast having won more League titles but the Bots having more wins. They were originally gonna be a continuation of the original UBA team but the ownership ended up due to a split in which club (Bengaluru United now owning the Beast, Bengaluru FC owning the Bots hence the Gandaberunda reference in their jerseys) should have shares. So the Bots have the original White away jersey as their alternate jersey. They have yet to win the title, with the only finals appearance being in 2040 with a perfect regular season and playoff record until the final where they lost in a shock upset to the Sikkim Dragons.

 

[Exceed_Idiot]

Team No.5 and the second one in the North division. Trying to think of how to depict Lakers without looking like LA led to the most generic logo here. Surprisingly the jerseys aren't as bad as I thought it'd be (Though it could be my bias for Cyan and Black).

Originally called the Bhopal Blazers (scrapped cuz I have no idea if it's insensitive or not), the Lakers are the lovable losers of the league (the inverse of the LA Lakers you might say).

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Team 6 and I screwed up by making all the jerseys say Bulls. I don't mind tbh.(Another South team btw)

Chennai Bulls enjoy great support as the only team in Tamil Nadu. However, they have a similar reputation as the IPL team Royal Challengers Bangalore, i.e., being massive chokers that have never won the league title. (Again, ignore what I wrote in the logo inspiration part)

[Exceed_Idiot]

Anyone who wants more Northern teams, the 4 of the next 5 will be Northern

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Team 7, Dehradun are a very competitive team in a strong division. They tend to be overshadowed by Delhi, Punjab and Kanpur but are more dominant against Haryana, Kashmir and Lucknow.

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Team 8, Delhi Nationals, having won the 2029 IPB title and being the club of the capital city, are amongst the popular clubs in the league. Due to their similar colours and success,  Delhi and Kanpur have a strong rivalry. Like Bengal, they own a football club although they are more successful in that endeavour.

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No.9, Southern Division, I have alot of regrets about the decisions I took with this one.

The Glorioso are formed from the Goa Wave in the old EPBL. They are owned by the same club as Vasco SC in the Pro Liga India (I don't think I've shown them off there yet) hence the alt jersey.

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10th one, North division, Gurgaon is another one I regret, and I made the logo around the time Chainsaw Man was airing.

Gurgaon shares a rivalry with Haryana and is one of two sports team in the city (the other being Ice Hockey).  Of the Northern belt teams, Gurgaon is one of the smallest markets.

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Picking up where I left off now. The Haryana Stags are a team in the Northern Division that are known to be great developers of talent (due to the sports culture of the state) but lacks success. They are situated in the North Cluster (Stags, Warriors, Knights, Renegades, Devils) and have a big rivalry with state rivals Gurgaon.

[Exceed_Idiot]

(Brightness warning) The Hyderabad Hawks are the weaker of the 2 Hyderabad teams but are more well-supported due to more accessible ticketing and being more well-managed of the two. The Hawks also have a rivalry with Vizag.

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Hyderabad Nizams are the only team from the Telugu Trifecta (Hawks, Nizams, Villains) to have the League title. While they have this success, they are also known as the most bizarrely run organisation in the league and constantly seem to be wildcards in every season with highly varying results. This is somewhat in line with other Hyderabad sports teams compared to their rival Hawks.

[Exceed_Idiot]

(Brightness Warning) Jaipur Diamonds are the second-most successful team in the league with 4 titles. They are also the only teams to ever win it back-to-back in 26 and 27.  Their main rivalries are in the region that can be called the Ganga SuperCluster (BayStars, Lakers, Nationals, Diamonds, Cagers, Nawabs, Paladins), distinguished for their proximity to the Ganga River, High population centres that can be useful for finding talent, high number of teams and great success in the league with 12 titles out of 25 coming from this area.  The Diamonds' success and rich ownership has allowed them to steal from talent hotbeds such as Haryana and Punjab often.

(Sidenote: The colours of the logo and jerseys are different because while making the logo part at the start of the year, I changed the colours to be easier on the eye but forgot to do that for the jerseys and banners. sorry for eyes damaged) 

[Jake3roo]

I feel like a lot of your designs and ideas are solid, but a little unrefined. I'd like to see you get a little bit more creative with color schemes involving more than 2 colors, and make more jerseys that don't follow the same template as the Utah Jazz (Nizams, Renegades, Bulls, Devils, Baystars, Aces) all look fairly similar w.r.t. "Wordmark over numbers, no outlines, 2 colors in the entire uniform, no white"

[Exceed_Idiot]

(ignore this post)

[Exceed_Idiot]

17 minutes ago, Jake3roo said:

I feel like a lot of your designs and ideas are solid, but a little unrefined. I'd like to see you get a little bit more creative with color schemes involving more than 2 colors, and make more jerseys that don't follow the same template as the Utah Jazz (Nizams, Renegades, Bulls, Devils, Baystars, Aces) all look fairly similar w.r.t. "Wordmark over numbers, no outlines, 2 colors in the entire uniform, no white"

Appreciate the comment.

The home and away color schemes are kind of set for all the teams so the most I can really do is add a third colour to the mix or go wild with the Alternate or Playoff jerseys (what I kind of tried with Nationals and Glorioso).  The main reason is that I've already made the logos and besides the Paladins and Villains teams, I'm not really planning to update them soon as I am busy IRL.

The Utah Jazz look is mainly because the jersey template I am using (https://pardosport-py.blogspot.com/2019/03/mockup-nike-basquet-v2.html) doesn't allow me to do much with either the collar, sleeve or side area. I am looking to change the template when I revisit them later on after completing all 30 teams.

I am willing to take your suggestions, though I do wanna know if there is any jersey specifically I can improve upon.

[Exceed_Idiot]

The Kanpur Cagers are the most successful team in India with 5 titles. Their most successful period was in the 2030s with three titles in alternating years. Prior to this, Kanpur were mediocre basketball team that rarely makes the play-offs. The Cagers have always somewhat return to this form right after winning the title.  The northern powerhouses have won the most recent season in 2050. They have failed to make it to the playoffs in 2051. (This is in the perspective of the end of the 2051 regular season).