Group play for the NBA In-Season Tournament concluded Tuesday night, and quarterfinal matchups will begin Monday. The tournament has been a talking point for NBA fans since before the first group-play games took place Nov. 3.
Fans and non-fans alike have had questions about the tournament. Why is it being played during the regular season? What’s the ultimate prize? What happens to the teams that didn’t advance past group play?
GO DEEPER
How does the rest of the NBA In-Season Tournament work?
Another question that seems to float around the tournament: What’s up with the courts?
Advertisement
Since their debuts last month, the In-Season Tournament courts for all 30 teams have been a talking point. The NBA unveiled all 30 court designs. They all have a similar theme — a giant NBA Cup, the tournament trophy, at midcourt and a 16-foot-wide “runway” with a specific color wash are on every court — but with different color palettes.
Three weeks ago, design experts at The Athletic offered their opinions of the court designs. As we prepare for the quarterfinal round next week, we decided to give three of our writers a chance to give their thoughts on each court.
GO DEEPER
'Boisterous.' 'Aggravating': How our designers judged NBA In-Season Tournament courts
The Athletic’s Jason Jones, Jay King and Eric Koreen came up with their own ranking by using a scoring system where 30 points were given to their favorite court, all the way to one point given to their least favorite. (This explains the numbers in parentheses next to each writer’s name below.)
Here is the ranking and their thoughts of each court. Feel free to hype up your favorite courts in the comments section.
(All images are courtesy of the NBA)
Koreen (30): I’m not sure this will help with their free-agency pitches, but this looks as close as possible to a sheet of ice — and I love it.
King (29): The colors work. The wolf looks great. Simple-but-effective font. Why can’t all the courts be more like this one?
Jones (26): Simple, but I like it.
Koreen (29): This was a gimme. They didn’t mess it up, so I’m giving credit where credit is due.
Jones (29): They didn’t overthink this one. Good job. Purple and gold was the only way to go.
King (26): One of the few courts that properly struck the balance between loud and classic. Well done here, NBA.
King (30): Yes. So much yes. The retro touch is perfect. The colors are calm without crossing over into boring. Every time I see this court, I want to stop everything else in my life just to watch Shaq and Penny highlights.
Advertisement
Koreen (28): See? It is possible to insert a retro aspect of the team’s design past within the context of these courts and have it be crisp, smart and not simply safe.
Jones (23): If the star could have somehow been right in the center of the court, I would have loved this design. Maybe with this color scheme, they didn’t want to do that and get accused of mimicking the Dallas Cowboys.
4. Utah Jazz (73)
Jones (30): It’s a lot of purple, but I like it. “Jazz” instead of “Utah” at midcourt would have been great. But, that’s about all I can say I don’t like, and that’s more of a preference than anything because the court is nice.
Koreen (24): I can’t totally rationalize it, but I’m into this. Nitpicking: The music note is one of the best logos in sports, and I wish it were on here more prominently. I feel like the two shades of purple work together, and that’s basically the whole thing.
King (19): All of this purple should bother me more than it does. I wouldn’t say I like it, but it doesn’t make me want to close my eyes.
Jones (28): Going with “The Land” at midcourt is a good look. The color scheme works with the trophy at midcourt, too.
Koreen (27): Well, it looks like a basketball court, which I like. Thank goodness they didn’t go too hard on the burgundy. As it is, the splash in the script works. I wish that “Cavs” on the baseline had the same font as “The Land.”
King (13): “Let em know” what, exactly? That the Cavaliers haven’t won a playoff series without LeBron James since Lenny Wilkens was still the coach? That this season’s team owns a negative net rating? I don’t hate the low-key coloring, but the team should have picked a different motto.
Jones (24): They definitely took a chance on the midcourt logo and won. This court feels like San Antonio — in a good way.
Advertisement
King (23): I’m into it. I’m not sure why, but I am.
Koreen (21): On TV, everything ended up being a little more washed out, and I think that is ultimately a detriment. This is a really imaginative look, meshing with the city in an ineffable way.
7. Memphis Grizzlies (64)
Koreen (26): Fire whatever is happening on the near sideline (see: Bulls’ court). However, this is one of the more pleasing shades-of-gray courts, with the gold-tinted logo one of the more striking features on any of the 30 courts.
King (22): I would be all the way in on this court if they had a tiny bit of Grizzlies blue and eliminated the design on the bottom sideline. But, that design is there, and it’s, um, not my favorite thing to look at.
Jones (16): I know the bottom pattern is supposed to represent the “MEM” for Memphis, but it’s giving me kitchen-towel vibes. Probably doesn’t help that I have gray towels in my bathroom. The court, however, looks nice. I just want to dry off my hands now.
Koreen (23): Nothing about this says “Atlanta Hawks” to me, but I am a sucker for sky blue, and I like the baseline font. In the age of texting, we can all relate to that no-caps life.
King (20): Why did they refuse to use capital letters? What do they mean by “lift as we fly”? Why do they have two State Farm Arena decals basically next to each other? This court doesn’t make much sense to me, but the colors — which have absolutely nothing to do with the Hawks — speak to me nonetheless.
Jones (15): I like this court more than I like Atlanta’s City Edition jerseys. But I’ll always love this shade of blue.
Jones (22): “The Hive is Alive” is a nice touch. I’m a sucker for the original Hornets colors, so if that were the dominant color, I’d probably have this as my favorite.
Advertisement
Koreen (19): Diving into teal would have been a risky move, but the other shade of blue doesn’t really speak to me. For whatever reason, these colors make the trophy design in the paint really stand out.
King (14): The hive is not alive. It has not been alive for years. Stop lying to me, Charlotte. The colors aren’t entirely distasteful, though, and the Hornet on the trophy is well designed.
King (27): Simple. Understated. Not quite elegant, but the Nets didn’t do too much here. In a world of wacky courts, that’s enough to rank this court near the top of my leaderboard. The blue in “Barclays Center” does seem out of place, though.
Koreen (18): Not a fan of the blue interlude in the court, although I understand why they’d want a pop of color. My favorite part is the baseline font. The rest of it is aggressively fine.
Jones (9): An all-black court was the move here. The gray just doesn’t do it for me.
Koreen (22): This one would have been improved by flipping the strip color with the rest of the court, but it remains a pleasing combination of blues. Thumbs-up.
Jones (21): I’m just glad the court doesn’t say “LA Our Way.” I love all shades of blue, and combining these was a good choice.
King (11): When evaluating the colors of the In-Season Tournament courts, Drake’s stance on money comes to mind: “Just enough to solve your problems. Too much will kill ya.” The blue on blue here annoys me. I have no other serious qualms with this court, but that’s enough to push it down my rankings.
King (21): I want to hate this. That’s not even close to Bucks green! But the colors are actually appealing, and the “Fear the Deer” motto always plays. This is a nice court.
Jones (18): The green stripe might be better if it were blue. But I shouldn’t complain too much. What if the majority of the court was that shade of green? Yuck. Still, anytime “Fear the Deer” is incorporated, I’m a fan.
Advertisement
Koreen (14): Just use the awesome forest green that is in their main color scheme. It’s right there! Everything else is nice and crisp, but that green does not belong with the rest.
Jones (27): The color combo works. Phoenix might have the best jersey/court combo of this In-Season Tournament.
Koreen (25): I’m not quite as into the Suns’ general vibe for the tournament as the internet at large seems to be, but their consistency and boldness are to be commended. No half measures.
King (1): The color combo does not work. It aggressively fails. It’s the perfect mixture of bad: A color scheme that bothers me visually while also having zero connection to the franchise. I can forgive the Bulls for using red since, you know, that’s their team’s color. The Suns went out of their way to splash this shade of blue on top of an ugly purple. I will not condone such behavior.
King (28): This is one of the courts I saw in person, and I liked it a lot. The dark colors didn’t take away from the viewing experience at all.
Koreen (17): Hi, Drake.
Jones (8): Maybe this needs more gold.
Jones (20): Did we really need the websites on the court? Might as well have put the social media handles on the other side of the court. All that said, I like the Mavs logo.
Koreen (15): Are they sure they couldn’t have added words to “For all of Dallas Fort Worth” so it could extend all the way down the sideline? The court is totally fine, safely played. Glad they added at least a hint of color in the midcourt logo, although I wish it more directly recalled the Mavericks’ green throwbacks.
King (15): I want to like this court. It’s not as overtly obnoxious as most of the others. But some things just don’t need to be stated on an NBA basketball court. “For all of Dallas Fort Worth” is one of those things.
Advertisement
Koreen (20): This looks more like a Minnesota Timberwolves court than a Sacramento Kings court, but I can’t deny liking it on its own merits. Major demerit points for how distracting the “Golden1” ends up being.
King (17): If you remove the word “Sacramento” from this design, I would have bet my life that this was a Timberwolves court. I would have liked it for Minnesota, but I’m just not sure how this works for the Kings. They missed an opportunity to have a victory beam coming out of the top of the trophy, too.
Jones (13): Another court where the colors make me think of the Cowboys. I’m surprised there isn’t more red on the court.
King (25): This court looks like my phone after I turn the brightness all the way down. I can’t help but think there’s a more vibrant version out there that could have been a little more appealing. This doesn’t give me a headache, though, and it beats a lot of the other courts.
Jones (14): The court feels very monotone. If the goal of these courts was to give us something splashy, this isn’t it. But the Warriors play in black and yellow City Edition uniforms, so maybe the options were limited.
Koreen (10): In real life, the majority of the court looks like slightly darkened hardwood as opposed to brown — and thank goodness for that. You are the Golden State Warriors, and you are competing for a gold trophy. I feel like they overthought this a tad.
Jones (19): I don’t like “5280” on the jerseys, but this doesn’t bother me. Maybe it’s because “Mile High Basketball” is on the sideline and complements the numbers. The color of the court works, too.
Koreen (13): Let’s just say it: “5280” is very close to jumping the shark or leaping the “Heat Culture” as it were. I think the colors contrast one another effectively, although on television, the yellow isn’t as bright as I would like.
Advertisement
King (9): I have a confession to make: When I first put on a Nuggets In-Season Tournament game, I had no idea what “5280” meant. Even with the words “Mile High Basketball” nearby, I did not understand. So, maybe I’m just dumb. Or maybe the Nuggets should have used a different logo at midcourt. Maybe both, if we’re being totally honest.
King (24): I’m probably alone on this. I know some hate the logo. I’m ashamed to admit I like it. I have no idea how it relates to the Pacers franchise, but it’s cool.
Koreen (9): I thought it was just the NFL that had a Nickelodeon tie-in.
Jones (4): Looks like the logo for a show, “Indy,” that’s aimed at teenagers.
King (12): The Celtics wanted the middle of their In-Season Tournament court to be parquet, but the league reportedly would not allow it. The NBA did allow Boston’s court to use Milwaukee’s colors, though. Outside of the No. 6, a nice touch honoring Celtics legend Bill Russell, who passed away last year, this court just doesn’t have much to it.
Koreen (8): Did Portland get the rights to Milwaukee’s In-Season Tournament court in the Jrue Holiday/Damian Lillard trade, and then re-route them to Boston with Holiday?
Jones (6): The stripe down the middle makes me think Notre Dame should also be playing on this court.
King (16): I can’t be the only one who thinks this court just looks like a cornhole board. Come to think of it, maybe the NBA should sell cornhole boards with the In-Season Tournament court designs. Boom! That’s a winner right there. This court? Not quite a winner, but not the most awful, either.
Jones (12): How do we get the skull and crossbones on the City Edition jerseys and not on the court? Boooo! We know the game is in Detroit. Give me more “Bad Boys” imaging.
Advertisement
Koreen (7): After you look at too many of these, the incongruity of the fonts on a single court really starts to bother you. (By you, I mean me.) With the Pistons, I think blue before I think red, so I wish they went that way with the middle stripe.
Jones (17): Less red, more blue. The logo on the trophy, however, is flawless.
Koreen (11): Another instance in which flipping the two primary colors would have done wonders. This might be my second-favorite midcourt logo integration, but it cannot save everything else.
King (6): Too much red. No more red.
Jones (25): I really can’t explain why I like this one, but I do. Maybe it’s the way “H-Town” at midcourt plays off the red court that makes this one of my favorites.
King (4): The red courts make me want to stop watching basketball forever. They make me want to pick up a hobby like, I don’t know, bird watching, which would never punish me with such unpleasant sights.
Koreen (4): This would be fire if it were the basis for, like, a sneaker. For a 94-foot-by-50-foot NBA court? It’s a lot, man.
Koreen (16): For a brief period, the Toronto Raptors tried to use a 3D sign on the baselines that would look cool in person. Somehow, what’s happening at midcourt here is even worse. That is a shame because I think the huge swing they took with the orange worked.
King (8): I can’t look at this court for more than five seconds at a time. It gives me a headache. It makes me want to run to the bathroom, pop some Advil and put my contacts in to fix my vision. The orange is way too much, but that’s far from the biggest problem here.
Jones (5): This might have been perfect if I wasn’t getting double vision while reading “New York.” Didn’t like it on the Knicks City Edition jersey, and I like it even less on the court.
Advertisement
25. Portland Trail Blazers (26)
Koreen (12): The Trail Blazers’ black-and-red color scheme is one of my favorites across the league, so they seem like the odd team that didn’t need to use a hint of regularness on their court. Their foundation gives them a relatively high floor in these rankings, but they made the least of the possibilities here.
King (7): It bothers me that the “Portland” looks so short on one side of the court, while the “Trail Blazers” takes up nearly twice as much space. I never thought I’d be the type of person to care about something like that, but apparently I am. I’m not sure I like this new side of myself I just uncovered, but I am sure I don’t like the court.
Jones (7): I guess going with plaid on the majority of the court — like the Portland City Edition jerseys — would have been distracting, but it would have been bold. The only thing that stands out on the court is the plaid in Rip City over the trophy. More plaid would have been epic.
King (18): Is it wrong to think the Wizards should change their colors to this permanently?
Koreen (5): Classic Wizards. Look, if you want to completely change your color scheme, actually do a proper redesign. If not, work with what you’ve got.
Jones (1): This just feels weird.
Jones (11): I’m shocked “Culture” isn’t on here somewhere. Are we allowed to discuss the Heat without mentioning “Culture”?
King (5): No. Please don’t make me look at this again.
Koreen (2): From Wikipedia: “‘Purgatorio’ (Italian for purgatory) is the second part of Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy,’ following the ‘Inferno’ and preceding the ‘Paradiso.’ … It is an allegory telling of the climb of Dante up the Mount of Purgatory.”
King (10): The state of Oklahoma looks like an error. Like someone slipped up on Microsoft Paint and forgot to press the delete button. It’s so out of place on the bottom. My bigger gripe: I can barely read “Oklahoma City Thunder” on the court. Am I going blind, or is that font way too tiny? Plus, the colors are too aggressive. Just not a fan.
Advertisement
Koreen (6): Why is the logo red? Someone give me a good answer. The Thunder have always had problems with their uniforms/color schemes, but I think they did the best they could with the court as a whole. The logo, though? Why?
Jones (2): The state of Oklahoma looks lonely on the sideline. Like, why is it just sitting there? It looks like it fell out the bottom of the trophy.
29. Chicago Bulls (13)
Jones (10): The Bulls logo with no color makes this floor feel incomplete — like someone got all the way to the end of the court and ran out of paint.
King (2): The Bulls logo is classic. It brings me straight to memories of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. I can hear the team’s theme song in my head every time I look at it. But the rest of the court made me want to turn off the television immediately. The product on the floor didn’t help ease my overwhelming urge to vomit.
Koreen (1): From Wikipedia: “‘Inferno’ (Italian for hell) is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem ‘Divine Comedy.’ … The ‘Inferno’ describes Dante’s journey through hell.” (See Miami. Get the connection?)
30. New Orleans Pelicans (9)
King (3): I would say I dislike this court, but I am petrified of it. I feel like the Pelican could come to life and attack me while a tornado of all those obnoxious colors snatches me off the ground. So, it’s better not to say the truth, which is that this court is an abomination.
Jones (3): I see the Pelicans went with a color combo the late “Macho Man” Randy Savage would have worn in the old WWE days. If I was on Bourbon Street, I’d rock these colors with a drink in hand with no problem.
Koreen (3): Radioactive Man from “The Simpsons” said it best when, upon being swallowed by radioactive waste, he uttered, “My eyes! The goggles do nothing.” They, uhh, went for it.
(Top photo of Derrick White and Gary Trent Jr: Cole Burston / Getty Images)
ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57lGlwbmhjZXxzfJFsZmpqX2V%2BcLrBmmSipl2osqK%2FzqdknKelp8G0edGapaShnpzAcA%3D%3D