It’s the most important and biggest event of the year for the NBA, but you wouldn’t know it by the mere optics of the Finals.
No gold trophy at center court.
And more importantly, no Finals script logo anywhere on the floor.
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Short of Oklahoma City fans wearing all white, you couldn’t tell the magnitude of the moment. Tyrese Haliburton’s winning shot in Game 1 will be etched in history regardless of the series outcome, but visually something was missing.
Fans took to social media in the last few days to remark how the floor looks sterile and bare compared to NBA Finals series of the past, and they were especially dismayed when bringing up the special courts the NBA uses for the early-season Emirates NBA Cup.
A closeup view of the 2014 NBA Finals logo at American Airlines Arena in Miami. (Photo by John W. McDonough /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
(John W. McDonough via Getty Images)
“We have the opportunity to plan well in advance and to design a specific neutral court for a Cup championship game, and the teams design their own Cup courts,” commissioner Adam Silver said Friday. “And it actually takes a significant amount of time to create new courts in terms of how they’re painted, et cetera.”
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Here’s a solution for the league, which they could employ starting next year: At the start of the conference finals, start making four versions of the floor for each arena so something will be ready for the Finals.
Of course, two will go unused, but the payoff of fan satisfaction could be worth the investment.
It’s simple, and it doesn’t affect the style or quality of play. But the visual of the logo makes the moment feel big, and the NBA should focus on making moments feel bigger — especially for a television audience.
“There was a sense that maybe the logos added some slipperiness to the court, and it was a change on the court that was coming just at the time of the Finals,” Silver said Friday afternoon at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Oklahoma County ribbon-cutting ceremony, where the league refurbished educational spaces, among other things.
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“And again, maybe it’s for superstitious reasons or just a sense from teams. We shouldn’t be changing things around such important competition.”
Maybe it was somehow slippery, although no moments come to mind when injuries occurred around the logo. Or maybe the NBA didn’t think it was that important.
The World Series has significant logos on the grass, and the Super Bowl has its unique signage at both 20-yard lines.
Silver, who seems to be online more than people would expect, saw the reaction and indicated perhaps a change can be made in the future.
“I hadn’t thought all that much about it till I thought it,” Silver said. “I’m nostalgic as well for certain things and and also, I think, for, you know, media-driven culture, whether it’s people watching live or seeing those images on social media, it’s nice when you’re looking back on highlights and they stand out because you see that that trophy logo or some other indication that it’s a special event.”
The Finals script design made its return in 2022 after a few years of a very bland, Microsoft Word-style design that was panned by all. When the script returned for the first time since the 2017 Finals, fans across the league rejoiced.
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It felt important. It felt big.
It was first put on the floors in the 1989 NBA Finals, and two years later, decals for the entire NBA playoffs were placed. Like Silver said, it created a nostalgia that for some reason the league went away from reinforcing.
During the ABC broadcast, there seemed to be nothing special — no televising the national anthem or starting lineups, and in last year’s Finals, digital advertising signage was placed on the floor instead of the Finals script.
It seems like an easy solution, and the league pays enough attention to social media and the like that it wouldn’t be a shock to see some level of visual change.
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Are numerous different champions better?
Not only will this be the seventh straight year the NBA will crown a new champion, Oklahoma City and Indiana joining the party means 11 teams have played for the NBA title during that span — with Boston, Miami and Golden State making multiple appearances since 2019.
Who knows if it’s a good, great or terrible thing — the lack of connective tissue between the Finals year after year? But it’s clear Silver believes this being a function of the collective bargaining agreement is a positive.
“I remember when I first joined the league,” Silver said Thursday during his Finals availability news conference. “David used to joke early on in his tenure, David Stern, as commissioner, he said his job was to go back and forth between Boston and L.A. handing out championship trophies.
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“I think it was very intentional, it didn’t begin with me, it began with David and successive collective bargaining agreements, that we set out to create a system that allowed for more competition in the league, with the goal being having 30 teams all in position, if well managed, to compete for championships. That’s what we’re seeing here.”
In Stern’s 30 years as commissioner, he handed trophies to Chicago, San Antonio, Los Angeles, Miami, Boston, Detroit, Golden State, Houston and Cleveland. Silver is already close to topping that number in less than half the time.
“I’ve said before, the goal is that market size essentially becomes irrelevant.”
