OKLAHOMA CITY — Tune into a December NBA Cup game, and you instantly know it’s an NBA Cup game by looking at the specially designed court (teams also wear special uniforms for those games). There are clear visual designations this is something special.
Tune into Game 1 of the NBA Finals and the court looked like the one the Oklahoma City Thunder would use for a random Tuesday night game in January. There was no Larry O’Brien trophy logo on the court, no NBA Finals logo on the court, just the usual Paycom logo.
NBA Twitter took notice and it became a discussion point during Game 1. The court looked plain. While it has been that way for a few years, people are now discussing it, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver suggested that the Larry O’Brien Trophy logo, or something similar, will return to the court next season. Quote via Sam Amick at The Athletic.
“To be honest, I hadn’t thought all that much about it until I (saw) it (on social media). I’m nostalgic, as well, for certain things. And also, I think for a 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 trophy logo or some other indication that it’s a special event. So, we’ll look at it.”
There hasn’t been a large Larry O’Brien logo on the court since 2014, primarily due to player safety concerns — the decal logos placed on top of the court were slippery. With the NBA Cup and plenty of lead time, specially-designed courts are made with all the paint and logos under a thin polyurethane coating, just like every other NBA court. However, for the Finals — where the participants are not locked in until about a week before the games start (often less) — there isn’t time for that, so decals were placed on top of the court. Those can get slippery. While the league moved away from the larger center-court logos, it did try smaller ones on parts of the court in 2017 and in the bubble in 2020. However, it has been a while since the court had a logo.
This year, the Internet took notice, and with that so did the league. In a world where player statistics and other graphic information can be added to a broadcast in real-time, there may be technological ways to add a court logo without potentially endangering the players.
However it gets done, expect there to be some kind of Finals logo on the court for the 2026 NBA Finals. Just not this year.
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