One of many important factors that made the NBA so successful was its marketing/branding process and its logo

It makes perfect sense that our LOGO series are nearing their finale with a story that is perhaps more important than all the previous ones. Combined. It is about the iconic NBA logo with Jerry West’s silhouette, and in order to fully comprehend it we decided to take an almost scientific approach.

The roots

Our scientific efforts are focused on the historical development of the NBA logo and we actually already have a great blog about that subject that we wrote ahead of the 75th NBA season which, in case you missed it, is right here. It is interesting to point out that original NBA logos were rather uninspiring as they basically featured a basketball with either “National Basketball Association” or later just “NBA” written inside it. One of the stories about the birth of the current iconic logo (introduced in 1969) is connected to efforts by the NBA to place itself above the up and coming American Basketball Association (ABA). Additionally, then NBA commissioner J. Walter Kennedy was a great fan of what the Major League Baseball (MLB) logo represented in terms of family values, so he hired the man who worked on that project as well.

The man was Alan Siegel who was an “accomplished high school basketball player”, as he shared in this great interview on NBA.com. While today it is widely known that a photo of Jerry West inspired him or the final version, the interview includes another interesting gem that solidifies Siegel’s credentials: “I charged $14,000. It was not a lot of money, but it was a prestigious assignment and I never gave it a second thought. Look, I was a sports fan. My father had tickets to Yankees, Dodgers, Giants, Knicks and Rangers. I grew up in the Garden and when I was a high school basketball star I played in the Garden. I was excited just to do it.”

Time for a change?

While going through the archives of the world wide web about this topic, the opinion of Jerry West on this subject comes up almost automatically. His stance can be summed up by the comment “I wish that it had never gotten out that I’m the logo, I really do,” which was part of his response during an ESPN interview:

It is pretty clear that the Lakers legend would prefer to be remembered by any other nickname than “The Logo” as he does have some impressive alternative options that we could choose from, such as “Mr. Clutch” or “Zeke From Cabin Creek.” Still, perhaps we should not ignore what he said and consider possible logo changes. In fact, several attempts of that were already made, with one of the most recent ones serving as a tribute to Kobe Bryant.

There were other similar campaigns and most of them revolved around the most legendary players, including Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, LeBron James and many others. What is your opinion about it? Do you have an idea of your own? Send us your designs to [email protected] and we will publish some of them on our social media channels, while the best one could even win a sweet prize from us!