The Philadelphia 76ers haven’t been really relevant on a basketball court since Jrue Holiday was their point guard and a lockout forced the NBA to first tip off on Christmas Day 2011. Since then, they’ve won 34 games — in Doug Collins’ final season — to 19 games in Brett Brown’s first season as head coach, to last season’s 18-64 laugh fest with Joel Embiid’s Twitter account drawing the most attention.
Perhaps because of that dizzying drop in wins, in recent months they’ve also revealed a new logo, and some pretty cool throw-back jerseys. It’s a transparent effort to mask the bad taste of the on-court action for fans who are getting tired of Sam Hinkie’s slow rebuild plans, entering year three this upcoming 2015-16 season. To go with the new uniforms and logo, now they’ve got a new court, too.
The oddest thing about the new Sixers court design is it may have leaked a little early. NBA Live perhaps revealed the court design in a trailer before Philadelphia Magazine could officially unveil pics of the court today. Here’s a screen shot of the initial pic we saw floating around.
And here’s the court design revealed by Philadelphia Magazine.
(Click here for a larger image)
If you’re like us, you don’t really recall what all the fuss is about, but die-hard Sixers fans more in love with that “nae nae” Betsy Ross vine than the actual professional basketball being played on the court in Philly, might be able to pick out the changes.
There’s now a “partial” logo at center court missing the blue outer ring with the name of the city and six stars.
But there are is a ring of 13 stars on the side of the paint and the word “Philadelphia” stretches along the length of the baseline instead of “Philadelphia 76ers,” which was written previously.
As said, the changes are minor, but it’s all part of rehabbing a franchise that really needs to win some dang basketball games again.
