NBA courts: The good, the bad, the ugly

A few weeks ago, someone tweeted that the Sixers have a very nice-looking court. I chuckled to myself when I read this because it’s the kind of thought that slips into my brain almost every day. I watch an unhealthy amount of NBA games, and so I occasionally catch myself thinking things like, “Man, how long have the Warriors had that cool logo at center court?” As fans, we are looking at a slice of the court during almost every second of an NBA broadcast. They are really pieces of art in their own way, and a pretty court adds an extra bit of enjoyment to the viewing experience — both in-person and at home.

Think of all the small decisions that go into making a court look the way it does. What do you want in the middle? Do you want the paint to be all one color, or should we use a different color for the edges of the paint? Do we want the paint to be any color at all? What about the semi-circle above the foul line – do we fill that in or leave it blank?

And what do we want painted on the baseline? The team’s full name? Its nickname? Something else? And in what font and size? Against what background?

And so I thought it’d be fun to rank the best and worst courts, and identify genres of courts we see around the league. This is a purely subjective list, and I think you’ll see my taste runs more toward the traditional. But that’s just me. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts.

THE ELITE

• Boston Celtics: A no-brainer, from the gorgeous shade of green to the leprechaun enclosed in concentric circles at center court — a logo designed by Red Auerbach’s brother. The parquet floor is obviously legendary, and the Celtics have wisely limited the typical intrusions (arena name, team Web site, etc.) to the baselines and sidelines. A beautiful, clean look.

• Philadelphia 76ers: The tweeter was right — this is a wonderful court. The paint is a solid blue with maroon at the edges — my favorite two-toned painted area in the league. The font used in the team’s name painted on the baseline is old-school Sixers font, and the center jump circle is as good as it gets.

• Detroit Pistons: The only court among my elite that fills up the entire paint and the circle – and the Pistons wisely use two different colors (red and blue) to do it. The blue and red go nicely, and I much prefer when teams use one color for the entire circle instead of a different color for the half above the foul line.

The space between “Detroit” and “Pistons” on the baseline is nice, and you know by now that I’m a fan of center circles that incorporate actual circles into their design. Bonus if the circle is a basketball, as it is here.

• Denver Nuggets: I’m fine if you don’t like this one; the powder blue isn’t for everybody, and it sort of clashes with the darker blue the Nuggets use along the sidelines and baselines. But I love it, and I like that Denver hasn’t mucked up the painted area with any other color; even the dotted lines and block/charge circle are a plain white that goes well with the light blue. Plus, points for subtly including both the new-ish Denver logo (the pick axes) in the center and the older one (the mountain landscape) on the right wings.

The font for “Denver Nuggets” on the baseline is monstrously huge, but not ugly enough to knock this court out of my top group.

• Chicago Bulls: Oh, that red. I just love that red, and I love that Chicago (like Denver) has not tried to get fancy with colors in the painted area. You could argue five Bull heads scattered around the court is overkill, but they’ve been at the elbows and at center court for ages, though the basketball background in the center is relatively new.

• Portland Trail Blazers: Here we get our first genre of painted area style: The Blazers, Spurs and Wizards all have the inside of the painted area blank (i.e. just the regular floor), with the edges and the half of the circle above the foul line all painted the same color. It’s a look that has grown on me, and it works best in Portland, with that nice, dark red bordering the paint. The Blazers also get the edge because of their unique, wordless center court logo and the squeezed-in look of “Portland”  and “Trail Blazers” along the baselines — in that traditional, italicized Blazers font.

• New York Knicks: The Knicks have let their shade of orange take over the painted area entirely, and that seems to fit this highlight-reel, flashy Knicks team well. The orange paint and blue baseline always go well together, and the Knicks’ center-court logo has long been one of the league’s best.

DECENT

• Orlando Magic: The new parquet-style floor is great, and the blue/black combination is always a winner. The words-to-logo ratio at center court is a little word-heavy for me, and you can barely see “Orlando Magic” written in dark blue against the black background of the baselines. A really good start at the Amway Arena.

• Los Angeles Clippers: About a half-dozen teams have gone to courts that feature a different shade of wood inside the three-point arcs from the shade in the middle of the court. I generally don’t like this two-tone style, but the Clippers pull it off better than any other team; the contrast isn’t too large, and the rest of the court is really nice. I like the solid blue paint and the way it goes with the court’s red trim, and the Clips have kept things pretty simple at center court.

Accidental bonus: Staples (the company) uses red font for its name, and that happens to be one of the Clippers’ core colors. The happy result is that the “Staples Center” logo on the floor meshes well with the Clippers’ court; that’s not the case with the Lakers’ floor, which is a big reason the two-time defending champs need a court more befitting of their status in the league.

• Golden State Warriors: There is so much yellow here, but it’s not the harshest yellow, and the Warriors are smart in not splashing a lot of other colors around a relatively strong and bright color like yellow in the painted area. The team’s logo in the middle, featuring a silhouette of the Bay Bridge, is one of the best in the league, and it’s blue-dominant presence at center court balances the yellow elsewhere.

• Indiana Pacers: Just a solid court. Not blow-you-away awesome, but really nice — a simple, all-blue painted area with white lines, and a small, circular center court logo with Indiana’s old-school blue and yellow “P” in the middle. If anything, the court could use a bit more flair. But this works.

• Sacramento Kings: The Kings squeak into this section — with major reservations — because of a purple-and-black combination that just does well with me. I like the purple paint flanked by the black edges and the use of black for the dotted line and the block/charge circle.

I generally don’t love huge word logos splashed across center courts, but the Kings get points for using purple again here and dotting the “i” in Kings with a crown.

One strong dislike: When teams sort of “erase” their names into the baseline by carving out the letters in the same shade as the floor. The Kings have done that here against a black background, but I like the rest of the court well enough.

THE WORST

• Minnesota Timberwolves: An incomparable mess. In general, I’m against the relatively new trend of making the wood inside the three-point line a different shade than the wood elsewhere on the court. Nowhere is the contrast more extreme than in Minnesota, where the middle of the court is shaded in some nightmarish butterscotch shade (hat tip: Bruce Arthur) way, way too dark for the rest of the floor. I dig the blue/black painted area and the traditional Minnesota font along the baseline, but the floor color and the center logo — which resembles an angry kitten more than a fearsome wolf — are just awful.

• Miami Heat: I have a feeling some folks like this court. I don’t. The orange-red/yellow combination in the painted area is just ugly, which is a shame, because I do like the rest of this floor. The flaming basketball going through the hoop is cool, and the black-and-white baselines are nice. Figure out the paint, and we’ve got something here.

• Oklahoma City Thunder: The only court in the league that has a blank interior paint, the edges of the paint in one color (yellow) and the half of the circle above the foul line in a different color (Thunder blue). Doesn’t work, perhaps because the shade of blue Oklahoma City uses isn’t deep enough to go well with a bright yellow. The center-court logo is a weird triangular thing that doesn’t scream anything in particular to me. The baseline is nice, though. Build on that.

• Cleveland Cavaliers: A nightmare in wine. This is the only court in the league that fills up the entire paint — below the foul line, the edges and the full circle — with a single color, and you can see why the 29 teams have opted against this style. It’s ugly and dark, and the wine color is far too dominant all across the court. The center logo — the word “Cavaliers” in letters so big the “C” and “s” nearly reach the three-point arcs — isn’t helping, nor is the Timberwolves-style, two-toned floor. Scrap it all and start over.

THE NEW TREND

• The Raptors, Rockets, Suns and Bobcats all use essentially the same style — one that de-emphasizes color in favor of using more and more of the brown wood. All four courts have painted areas that only have colored paint along the edges below the foul line, and two of the four (Toronto and Houston) have relatively minimalist center-court logos. The wood color gets prime billing on the baselines and sidelines, too.

I’m still not sure what I think of this look. It’s growing on me, but I don’t think it has quite the ceiling of the more traditional look heavier on colored paint.

(All photos courtesy of the NBA.)