Why do teams change for the worse?

[IceCap]

Granted, some of these are alternates. Still, at least the teams are trying to incorporate the team name into the identity somehow. The Cavs' 90s set made no such effort.

Same can be said about their logo in the 80's too then, yet that one somehow gets the "free-pass". The 90's logo was based off of the 80's logo with regards to the "V".

I don't give the 80s logo a "free pass."

[JohnnySeoul]

Granted, some of these are alternates. Still, at least the teams are trying to incorporate the team name into the identity somehow. The Cavs' 90s set made no such effort.

Same can be said about their logo in the 80's too then, yet that one somehow gets the "free-pass". The 90's logo was based off of the 80's logo with regards to the "V".

I don't give the 80s logo a "free pass."

I never said, "Ice Cap", Mr. Sunshine.

[MJWalker45]

If the Indians added a navy brim to their red caps, it works. But it's odd to have a modern home uni and the road uni be a throwback

And speaking of Cleveland, this is the uniform we must all appreciate

**golf clap**

I remember when these rolled out. I couldn't wait for them to change. This was the beginning of the BFBS era. And the logo didn't say Cavaliers at all. As far as the Indians, if they got rid of the Red hat and put Wahoo on the away hats, and cleaned up the letters on the away to match the Major League jerseys these would be fine. The cream home jersey has been an alternate for a few years now, the gray just matches up with it but that shouldn't be necessary.

[tommytimp]

I hold to my rule of interpretation thusly: Since no member of the Cleveland Cavaliers is ACTUALLY a REAL cavalier (or "chevalier" = horse guardsman), and no member of the Milwaukee National League Ball Club is a real brewer of beer, the logo needn't be literal. Ball-in-a-hoop or ball-in-glove or stick-in-rink can work just fine. The same people who squint and say "huh?" at ball-in-glove without a wordmark would still say "huh" if they saw a picture of Barrel Chest without the wordmark. I might take exception though if, for instance, the Cavaliers decided to make their logo a hip-hop kid breakdancing to a jam box that said "CLE" on the side, or something that truly had nothing to do with basketball, the team name or Cavaliery. (Which I think has been done on occasion in the big 4 besides the Blackhawks) Just my two cents' worth on this topic.

[UnclearInitial]

I hold to my rule of interpretation thusly: Since no member of the Cleveland Cavaliers is ACTUALLY a REAL cavalier (or "chevalier" = horse guardsman), and no member of the Milwaukee National League Ball Club is a real brewer of beer, the logo needn't be literal. Ball-in-a-hoop or ball-in-glove or stick-in-rink can work just fine. The same people who squint and say "huh?" at ball-in-glove without a wordmark would still say "huh" if they saw a picture of Barrel Chest without the wordmark. I might take exception though if, for instance, the Cavaliers decided to make their logo a hip-hop kid breakdancing to a jam box that said "CLE" on the side, or something that truly had nothing to do with basketball, the team name or Cavaliery. (Which I think has been done on occasion in the big 4 besides the Blackhawks) Just my two cents' worth on this topic.

But then why name the team Cavaliers? Why not just Cleveland Basketball Club?

[JohnnySeoul]

I hold to my rule of interpretation thusly: Since no member of the Cleveland Cavaliers is ACTUALLY a REAL cavalier (or "chevalier" = horse guardsman), and no member of the Milwaukee National League Ball Club is a real brewer of beer, the logo needn't be literal. Ball-in-a-hoop or ball-in-glove or stick-in-rink can work just fine. The same people who squint and say "huh?" at ball-in-glove without a wordmark would still say "huh" if they saw a picture of Barrel Chest without the wordmark. I might take exception though if, for instance, the Cavaliers decided to make their logo a hip-hop kid breakdancing to a jam box that said "CLE" on the side, or something that truly had nothing to do with basketball, the team name or Cavaliery. (Which I think has been done on occasion in the big 4 besides the Blackhawks) Just my two cents' worth on this topic.

But then why name the team Cavaliers? Why not just Cleveland Basketball Club?

Because I guess it sounded cool in the 70's. As for the 90's Cavs logo...it was an updated version of the 80's logo. They just expanded on the 80's logo "V" with the bball in it and made it more graphic. Once the fans and media started calling them the Cavs instead of the Cavaliers, they just faded away from the whole Cavaliers theme.

There's no lake involved in the Lakers logo nor do they have lake colors. There's no warriors on the current Golden State logo/uni's. There's no thunder (or lighting) on the Oklahoma City logo/uni's....though I'm not actually sure how you would show thunder since it's a sound, lol.

All in all, team names are no big deal.

[tommytimp]

Plus, alliteration! It took me a long time to even realize the Lakers were originally from a place that had 10,000 of them. I always just conflated LA and LAkers. Cleveland Cavaliers is Catchy. K sounds are always catchy.

[The_Admiral]

I thought the sword motif was as literal as it needed to be for the Cavaliers. It was a happy medium between having the starting lineup come out on horses and "a basketball team."

[tommytimp]

I thought the sword motif was as literal as it needed to be for the Cavaliers. It was a happy medium between having the starting lineup come out on horses and "a basketball team."

I like the sword motif, both the LBJ-era and the new one. It's a pretty small leap in logic, but it's not 100% literal. I also liked the "Musketeer" logo in the 70s. (Has anyone ever seen a depiction of a musketeer in pop culture weilding a musket?) But if the Cavaliers could come out on horses for their intro I think we all agree that would be the best thing for this site, the NBA, and the world in general.

[John in KY]

This question is easy for me, and the answer IMO was simply money. Why else would you go from this...

To this?

Um - so the players didn't have to wear Durene jerseys in August/September/October outdoors in New Orleans and white screen-printed numbers were the best that Medalist/Sand-Knit could do back in 1969 (along with using the Packers-style stripe pattern)? Also weren't those supposed to be worn with the black helmets the NFL wouldn't allow them to use? I've also heard that the league wanted the Saints to ditch the gold numbers because they were harder to read but that could be an urban legend.

Of course I do agree that the originals with the gold tackle-twill numbers were better; I'm kind of agnostic as to whether the stripes should be 3 white/2 gold or 3 gold/2 white as long as they are the large, equal-sized stripes from the Durene jerseys.

[IceCap]

I hold to my rule of interpretation thusly: Since no member of the Cleveland Cavaliers is ACTUALLY a REAL cavalier (or "chevalier" = horse guardsman), and no member of the Milwaukee National League Ball Club is a real brewer of beer, the logo needn't be literal. Ball-in-a-hoop or ball-in-glove or stick-in-rink can work just fine. The same people who squint and say "huh?" at ball-in-glove without a wordmark would still say "huh" if they saw a picture of Barrel Chest without the wordmark. I might take exception though if, for instance, the Cavaliers decided to make their logo a hip-hop kid breakdancing to a jam box that said "CLE" on the side, or something that truly had nothing to do with basketball, the team name or Cavaliery. (Which I think has been done on occasion in the big 4 besides the Blackhawks) Just my two cents' worth on this topic.

But then why name the team Cavaliers? Why not just Cleveland Basketball Club?

Because I guess it sounded cool in the 70's. As for the 90's Cavs logo...it was an updated version of the 80's logo. They just expanded on the 80's logo "V" with the bball in it and made it more graphic. Once the fans and media started calling them the Cavs instead of the Cavaliers, they just faded away from the whole Cavaliers theme.

We all understand that the 90s look is an update of the 80s look.

There's no lake involved in the Lakers logo nor do they have lake colors. There's no warriors on the current Golden State logo/uni's. There's no thunder (or lighting) on the Oklahoma City logo/uni's....though I'm not actually sure how you would show thunder since it's a sound, lol.

The Cavaliers are not the Lakers or the Warriors. Those are both older franchises in large media markets. They can get away with forsaking logos that represent their nicknames. The Cavaliers are a relatively newer team in a smaller midwestern market. They can't get away with the "we don't need to represent our nickname" look. The sword motif they've been going with since James landed there has been an awesome way to visually acknowledge the team name.

The 80s logo was a generic wordmark and the 90s logo looked like something you would find if you typed "basketball clipart" into a Google image search.

[Blue Falcon]

But then why name the team Cavaliers? Why not just Cleveland Basketball Club?

If that happens, we will end up with the following, courtesy of The Onion:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/you-will-suffer-humiliation-when-the-sports-team-f,10804/

[DeFrank]

I would contend that the Caps blue/black/gold identity was a great one, but I do like the idea of DC sports being RWB (except the Redskins ). Both identities are great. If anything, I would love to see a RWB recolor of both the flying eagle and capital dome logos. But that being said, the current W eagle is a beauty

[ESTONES6]

The only regression in the new Indians aways is that they used a third style of pipping. The Home, home alt, and away all have different pipe patterns. Turrible.

The new Indians away is infinitely better than cartoon "Cleveland" script. Now, all they need to do is go back to the Feller-era Jndians font for the home, put the block "Cleveland" on the blue, and it will be a perfect set.