The Cornucopia of Possible NBA Logo Changes

[jimbojohnny56]

Cavs look great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The old uniforms sucked!!!!!!!!!!

So the swingman versions of these new uniforms won't be available right away?

[DG_ThenNowForever]

It might have some staying power if there's any real nostalgia for the San Diego Clippers, though. It's unique and has precedent, seems like a better idea than being the 30th red/white/blue team...they still feel like a generic team in generic colors to me.

It's funny. The Hawks changed their uniform to look more like the Clippers (among other teams), and now the Clippers look more like the Hawks.

Don't they have anyone approving these changes in the head office?

EDIT:

Just for fun, what the hell?

[SmoothieX]

The Cavs had my favorite home and road unis in the league, though I never cared for the alternate nor their court scheme once they unpainted the paint.

Those new unis are dreadful! Look like something a 4 year old did with ketchup and mustard. They can look like crap while playing like crap.

[Brave-Bird 08]

Wow. I could not be more dissapointed with all of the rebrands going around the NBA this year. I'm especially dissapointed with the Cavs. The whole throwback trend just got milked out of anything it was ever worth. and what were the T-Wolves thinking? destroying what I thought was one of the coolest looks in sports. bland bland bland...

kind of like turning down a bunch of nasty looking, yet delightfully tasty burgers for a round of avacado hoagies.

[eRay]

FWIW, the NBA tweeted this picture of the rookie photoshoot. Shows some of the new jerseys on real people. Interesting.

http://twitpic.com/2flxyg

[Audiodrama]

From that Rookie photo...

1. The new Dallas roads are hideous. The darker shade of blue was much better as a dominant color.

2. The Warriors road set. lol.

3. From this angle, the T'Wolves road and the Wizards road look quite similar. I'm guessing the side-panels make all the difference.

4. It's startling how low the "Los Angeles" wordmark is on the new Clips duds.

5. In that front row, the two best uniforms -- by a wide margin -- are the Celtics and Spurs. This new wave of re-designs has taken the NBA back a few steps, aesthetically.

[SmoothieX]

I'm really digging the Golden State look!

[jhans203]

I'm really digging the Golden State look!

Why? You can't even read the font from a reasonable distance!

[gosioux76]

I'm really digging the Golden State look!

Why? You can't even read the font from a reasonable distance!

There's the font, and that ridiculous white and blue stripe on the shorts. It looks like the guy took a practice jersey and paired it with a pair of shorts off the TJ Maxx discount rack.

[jimbojohnny56]

Clippers,Jazz,Warriors and Cavs all look good to me. The T-Wolves screwed up big by getting rid of the green the Mavs change isn't great either. The Magic,T-Wolves and Mavs now all look pretty much the same and that is lame. If I were the Magic I'd start wearing that black alt. alot on the road just so people know they are the Magic and not the team that looks like the T-Wolves/Mavs. The Mavs should have kept their green alt. from 2008 and added a home uni with the Mavs in green on it to match up with the roads. There was real potential for something nice with that, too bad.

[Billy B]

The Mavs jersey doesn't look very good with that lighter shade of blue as the main color. They didn't need to make that switch at all. And I actually like the Cavs jersey. Now, it's nowhere near as good as the last set, but I still think it's good.

[Wasatch]

But I like the new Jazz uniforms. The previous set was really bland and that was fixed with the update. I like the color combo (although the green could be a little lighter). I think my favorite part is the white side panels on the road uniforms. The only thing I'm not liking is the different colored wordmark and numbers. It's more annoying for me on the road than the home, but both would look better having the numbers be the same color as the wordmark.

Although I agree with you on the side panels and their past uniforms being bland, I?d have to disagree with you that the different colors between the numbers and the wordmark are annoying. I think it?s a nice shift from where the uniforms where back in the 80?s through mid 90?s. It?s something different and fresh, and I thought that?s what new uniforms were supposed to bring, something new to the table while looking good at the same time!

I was not expecting to find this on the actual site

Those are incredible renderings! Who created them???

Jazz - Huge downgrade. Honestly people, you think that color scheme is good? My crazy opinions say that the good reception this unveiling is getting comes from the older gentlemen on these boards that like to feel nostalgic. Personally, the Jazz have the worst look in the league now. Yes, Goldenplate, errr Golden State looks better. Much better.

That was the whole reason for this ?Jazz Retro Movement?, because the fans wanted it, they wanted to return to the ?good old days? when the people of Salt Lake City and Utah became attached to their beloved Utah Jazz, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Frank Layden, Jerry Sloan, etc. So it doesn?t surprise me that a younger fan (I?m assuming from your comment) like you doesn?t understand this move.

Perhaps the NBA is finally coming to grips and realizing that they should have stuck with their original 1970?s & 80?s identities in the first place, but just expanded upon them!

[CitizenTino]

Given the feedback on here, maybe this belongs in the "Unpopular Opinions" thread, but I'll go ahead and say it: Those new Cavs home unis are sharp. I'm 50/50 on the roads (lack of white trim hurts). Hard to tell what they're doing with the collar shape because of the generic cut of replicas, but I think these look really clean and classy. The "All for One..." slogan on the inside collar is cool. I'm a fan.

I loved the what they've worn over the past 7 years, but I think I can get on board with these.

[jlentz823]

video of j. Lin warriors rookie photo shoot

http://www.twitvid.com/YFWYF

[DustDevil61]

Utah Jazz: Fan Fest photo gallery

I've got to admit, these look good. Better than the Boozer-era blues and better than the mountain look. Here's my rundown of the unforms:

The Good: I love the design, and I love the use of color. Even though the Jazz went with navy as their primary home color, there is a good blend of Yellow-gold (though it seem so dark that it looks more like "Orange-gold", is it really darker?), White, and Green. I shouldn't be too surprised that the Jazz will unveil a green alternate in a few years. I'm liking the white stripe on the roads the more I look at them; I don't think that I've seen a white stripe on many other NBA teams. I like the numerals; they seem to have been updated, without serifs. Compare the 7 on Ronnie Prices' 17 to Pete Maravich's 7. I also like the amount of white on the collars, as well. This set should prove to be a unique look that pays homage to the team's traditional look. I look forward to seeing these in action.

The Bad (or, what I just don't like): I think putting striping of some sort on the bottom of the pants would help the overall design. At least on the road, some more balance seems to be achieved. The home pants look fine. Like someone else said before, the "Utah" on the butt isn't entirely necessary, and its font doesn't really fit with the rest of the uniform, but at the very least I'm glad that "Utah" is somewhere on there; maybe it could've found its way onto the back's top of the jersey, the front top, or possibly found a way to put it onto the Note J Jazz logo. Like I said before, the green (at least on this computer) doesn't show up well on either jersey, but it should show up well under the arena lights. These pictures were shot around sunset, after all.

[tBBP]

Perhaps the NBA is finally coming to grips and realizing that they should have stuck with their original 1970’s & 80’s identities in the first place, but just expanded upon them!

And what I'm finding with this new wave of NBA rebrands is pretty much a dearth of creative ingenuity, as if no one really wants to try something "new". But, as with pretty much everything else, sports design is cyclical, and so right now the trend has cycled back around to the "throwback" wave...which pretty much goes against the main adage of graphic design, which is identifying trends and staying ahead of them. However, wit the NBA of late, a good many teams (unless it's adidas that's responsible for doing this) have seemed content to just jump on the trendy train of retrograde identities and ride it on out. The "mountainball" era Jazz uniforms were a great example of a little creative ingenuity (with the possible exception of the gradient mountain on the fronts of the road jerseys). Having said that, if the Jazz fanbase wanted that throwback design that bad, I guess it's good on the Jazz that they delivered. Overall, I don't hate it, but the "practice jersey" bevel block numbers have got to go. The green numbers on the homes really looks out of place...but I understand they probably wanted to shoehorn green in there the best way they saw fit. And it probably only looks as out of place as it does when one sees that the roads prominently feature yellow and white...and what green there is on there is barely noticeable. Oh...and the white side panels do look rather sharp there.

Couple other observations...

...I actually do not mind the new Dallas roads at all; in fact, I like them. That shade of blue looks really nice...and anything that moves away from the navy train is a thumbs-up in my book. As they were the first NBA team to do the two-blue thing in this "modern" era, I suppose it works for them.

...On their own, those new Cavaliers do not look bad at all. It is what it is...simple and safe, and the colors play well off each other. That said, it is absolutely a downgrade from what they replaced. I always find it funny when a team chooses to go with a new font for scripts and numbers, yet keeps logos that feature letters or scripts in the old font style, like the Cavs have done here. Having said that, I see not an ounce of navy blue on these, which definitely helps the overall aesthetic.

...Judging by that twitpic of the rookie shoot, I'm going to guess the Golden State Warriors are all about the bridge now. That side panel looks like it was inspired by the bridge trusses themselves. The colors look really sharp, and as much as I want to like that front logo/panel thing simply for being "different", I just can't do it. Plus, in my opinion, the dark navy/golden/gate orange and golden yellow palette of the previous identity was much more distinctive. I like distinctiveness.

...I didn't care for the redesigned Timberwolves lok last year; I definitely ain't caring for the tweak. I actually liked the scripts and numbers, and don't mind the refreshening here. Other than that, pretty much every detail in that uniform looks forced to me, from the not-so-subliminal "M" in that forest design on the shorts to the same not-so-subliminal upside-down "T" on the wolf head logo...however, I am glad they fixed those collars. The previous ones looked like hot garbage. I realize this observation might contradict what I said earlier about teams not trying anything new...but there's a way to do that without making everything seem so "forced". See the Atlanta Hawks for a good example.

...I echo many of the sentiments about the Clippers' new look. I'm not really feeling the Atlanta Falcons-esque numbers--they should have stuck with the varsity block. The offset script still bugs me, but it looks fresher. That neck logo is a no-go; they need to get that up off of there. And those scripts are way too low. Overall, they do look much more streamlined now, so in that vein, I'll give them a slight thumbs-up.

[TFoA]

Clippers - Already decided IMO that was an upgrade. Won't go into too much detail here.

T-Wolves - DOWNGRADE, DOWNGRADE, DOWNGRADE, for one simple reason: They took out the green. What the hell, the way that they utilized their green in those uniforms was last year was genius. Now they go for the boring blue-&-black look. That is lame. Now the T-Wolves just look like one of those teams that jumped on the blue-&-either-black-or-navy bandwagon and it's a shame because they were on of the rare uniquely-good looking teams in the NBA. Now it's just boring, and it's wack.

Cavs - Boring. I do like the fact that they have their motto in the inside of the collar...but other than that, it looks like it was done in MS Paint. That is a valid excuse for teams like the Celtics who have had traditional-style uniforms since their beginning...but the fact that the Cavs went to...that...after having one of the classier looks in the NBA is just LAME. I don't care if LeBron left, a visual downgrade is a visual downgrade. Idk, maybe it'll grow on me later...but this is a HUGE downgrade compared to what they're leaving behind.

Jazz - Not at all a fan of them doing another recolor of their mountain primary logo. But I guess the Jazz look like the Jazz. It's what their fans wanted a return to, and they basically teased it with the throwbacks last year. Either way, the logo is boring, the uniforms are decent. I wish they would've done something other than the lame standard number font that they went with, (Maybe even an outline?) but other than that, it's okay I guess.

Mavs - The tweaks worked for them. Not much else can be said.

[jimbojohnny56]

What's with all this love for the Hawks uniforms? Really, they suck.

[tBBP]

Care to expound on why, jimbo?

[TICC]

I think putting striping of some sort on the bottom of the pants would help the overall design. At least on the road, some more balance seems to be achieved. The home pants look fine. Like someone else said before, the "Utah" on the butt isn't entirely necessary, and its font doesn't really fit with the rest of the uniform

Registered to comment here. I'm not any sort of design expert, but I had the exact same thought. With the piping on the neck, it seems as though dropping the J-note and adding piping on the bottom of the shorts would have improved the look.

Don't know if it's worth asking someone to mock something like that up (being new and all...), but it sure would be cool to see (I may take a stab at it later).

Edit: To those saying the new Jazz unis are boring/unoriginal/blah, I think the white side paneling on the roadies is a pretty unique look. If only the shorts didn't look like ass...