G-League Logo Rank, Part 2

Last week I published the first in a series of three posts ranking team logos of the 26 teams that make up the G-League or Gatorade League, the minor league farm system of the NBA, formerly known as the NBDL. I took on the eight worst (in my humble opinion) packages of logos adopted by the teams that make up that league. Here's part two, which also features eight not so good but certainly better than last week's logos. Once I'm done here, I'll conveniently have ten logos remaining for a triumphant top 10 in next week's post.

Enough gold plating something that has really no importance whatsoever but which strangely means something to me in the dead of summer when there's no NBA. Let's start in Grand Rapids.

18. Grand Rapids Drive

In part one of my G-League Logo Rank, I mentioned that I sketched the initial draft of this post series some months ago. In the first pass, the Grand Rapids Drive, which have pulled together a really pretty awesome looking primary logo with an absolutely abominable wholely unnecessary jumbo "GR" as their secondary look, were actually ranked much higher. So why the drop? Turns out it's because of what their parent club the Detroit Pistons went and did.

Let me explain. I love the old Detroit Pistons logo that the team used from 1979 to 1996. The complete loss of that logo in favor of (initially) a fire-breathing horse with tailpipes and a subsequent plain looking basketball with some strangely fonted arched wordmark over it was distressing to me. The only thing that came close to that classic look was the Drive's main logo. And I loved it (still do). But now the Pistons have adopted a logo that's closer in appearance to the 80s and early-90s one than the Drive's. Consequently the Drive's logo just ain't that great for me and the absolute horrorshow that is the giant "GR" becomes more dominant. I'm maybe being a bit unfair to the Furniture City (I'm serious with that name) but whatever. Get rid of the "GR" please.

17. Salt Lake City Stars

Does the Salt Lake City Stars logo seem unusually small to anyone or is it just me. Check out the full selection of primary G-League logos on Chris Creamer's sportslogos.net site and tell me it doesn't. Other than the Northern Arizona Suns (terrible name), the Stars' logo is way smaller than any other team's. I think that's the first thing that bothers me. It shouldn't because taken in isolation the Stars' logo is neither bigger nor smaller than anything. But it does all the same.

As a logo, the Stars look isn't all that bad. But it isn't all that good either. It's just a star with a basketball in front of it and another couple of stars on either end of the wordmark. Ironically (considering where this sort of thing got the Grand Rapids Drive and Texas Legends) the Stars might actually benefit from a secondary logo. Maybe something a little more exciting. Two thumbs sideways here.

16. Long Island Nets

Speaking of not all that bad, but not all that good either, let's take a look at the Long Island Nets. If there's a traditional logo that looks like it was borrowed from another decade and another sport, it's the Nets' look. This simple basketball with a script "Nets" written in front of it looks like it could be straight out of Major League Baseball in the 1970s. Not much more to say here. The Nets have crafted something innocuous enough not to be marked down for being bad but without much merit deserving of praise.

15. Erie Bayhawks

Last December I made it to my first Erie Bayhawks game. A couple of weeks later I found out the team had been sold to the Orlando Magic, which meant the complete death of yet another longstanding independent team before the one-to-one affiliations and outright ownership by NBA parent teams began to consume the league. For the Bayhawks, it meant that the 2016-2017 season would be their last. No more Bayhawks. No more complicated but independently proud Bayhawks logo.

Since my trip to Erie, the Bayhawks have moved to Lakeland, Florida and have become the Lakeland Magic. Yet the Bayhawks remain for one final season because the Atlanta Hawks' G-League franchise doesn't have a building to play in yet. So they agreed to stash the team in Erie under the old Bayhawks name. It's an odd circumstance that has nothing to do with ranking the team's logo, which is neither that good nor that bad. This is likely the Erie Bayhawks will be featured in any logo rank and I think that's sad.

14. Rio Grande Valley Vipers

The Vipers, just like the Bayhawks, are one of the holdovers from the pre-NBA team ownership era of the G-League (or the D-League actually), a team with a name not aligned with any NBA team's branding in a city somewhat far from the home club. Only their logos are better than those in Erie.

The primary logo is the best Vipers look here, a basketball (which oddly enough is one of the microfiber composite basketballs the NBA rolled out in 2006 and then kicked to the curb on January 1, 2007) with a viper, which are endemic to the Rio Grande Valley where Hidalgo (the Vipers' home town) is located, wrapped around it. It's well designed and proportioned and makes me believe that one of these things could wrap itself around a ball as a hands-off-this-is-mine gesture.

The secondary logos are less successful, mostly because the snake looks really stubby. There's not way a normal snake body is present between the head and tail in the alternate logos.

13. Sioux Falls Skyforce

The Skyforce are one of the G-League's oldest franchises, tracing their lineage all the way back to the old Continental Basketball Association in 1989 with no change in location or naming (although they flexed on the color) despite the fact that the Miami Heat moved into single affiliation status in 2013. They are one of the league's true survivors. For now.

There's not much to the Skyforce's logo. It's a simple basketball moving at rate of speed high enough to cause some sort of warped matter trail as it moves from left to right and down to up. It worked better with the team's old colors in my opinion (I've included the new scheme above and the original at the top of this post) but the Heat color scheme doesn't detract from the look that much. Simplicity (and my insistence on letting nostalgia for the good old days of the D-League and before) puts the Skyforce just inside the top half at 13.

12. Austin Spurs

I like the San Antonio Spurs logo. I like it so much that I've put it in the sixth position in my NBA logo rank each of the last three years. As much as I do like it though, I don't need to give that organization credit for just duplicating their look and foisting it on their minor league Austin-based franchise. It is as close to the original look as it could possibly be. The Spurs finish here because of just plan lack of originality.

11. Iowa Wolves

This offseason the Minnesota Timberwolves re-branded themselves completely. Well, maybe not completely because they still have the same nickname and their howling wolf logo looks suspiciously like previous howling wolf logos they have used. But they changed their color scheme a little, the wolf looks decidedly less rabid than he or she did in the past and their look now prominently features a four pointed north star in some sort of deep chartreuse color

Turns out the Timberwolves want the same look for their newly acquired G-League in Des Moines, the former Iowa Energy and now the Iowa Wolves. No howling in this one. Instead the wolf is looking straight at you and it doesn't look friendly. Not raving about the primary logo here; it's clearly a 2-for-1 special from the ad agency who redesigned the parent company's look. But I like the (again) map-based secondary logo if for no other reason than Iowa never seems to get a lot of pub as a state shown in isolation. I'm thinking the star is a bit too low for Des Moines, though.

16 down; 10 to go. I know all you G-League fans are already debating in your heads which of the remaining 10 franchises you'd put in which order. Eh, who's kidding whom. At least 90% of the people who will read this couldn't name five of the remaining 10 teams. If you are not motivated to look it up (and let's face it, who really is) stay tuned next week to this spot for the top 10.

Royce White

A year ago today, I watched a basketball game between the NBA D-League's Rio Grande Valley Vipers and Maine Red Claws in the tiny town of Hidalgo, Texas right on the Mexican border. That game was part of a four game in five nights NBA and NBDL vacation which proved to be one of the more enjoyable trips I have taken in the last few years. Of all the basketball I watched that week, I was most excited about the game in Hidalgo for a number of reasons. One of the more intriguing was that I would get to see Royce White play his first professional game in person. As it turned out I also got to chat with him for a few minutes while he tied his shoes.

Royce White was 16th overall pick of the Houston Rockets in the 2012 NBA Draft, a 6'-8" 260 pound forward who led his college team, the Iowa State Cyclones, in points, assists, rebounds, steals and blocks per game in his one year there after transferring from the University of Minnesota. Royce also has general anxiety disorder, a condition which requires him to live his life in a very controlled, predictable fashion to avoid situations of high stress which typically cause him to shut down. A fear of flying, which many people have latched onto as Royce's only issue, is one of the high stress situations that Royce needs to carefully control. Flying is definitely something that is part of the job description as a member of an NBA team with a frequent and national travel schedule.

Royce's general anxiety disorder and the accommodations he sought to deal with that condition had caused contract negotiations with the Houston Rockets to be long and complicated. Central to satisfactory resolution of a contract with the Rockets was Royce having a qualified medical professional who would be able to evaluate his suitability to play on any day based on his mental condition that day. This type of contract condition is not something NBA teams historically have had to include in rookie deals and I thought (as did Royce, I believe) that his negotiation would serve as a watershed moment that might change how mental illness in professional sports is approached. After all, Royce can't be the only athlete dealing with mental health issues, right?

By the time I got to Hidalgo, Royce's story had been publicized well enough to land him in stories on ESPN's Outside The Lines and HBO's Real Sports. Unfortunately, his battle with the Rockets had also caused him to miss most of training camp while playing exactly zero regular season minutes for the Rockets. Along the way after contract negotiations were completed, there had been a refused assignment to the Vipers, a subsequent suspension and finally a reconciliation which caused him to be on the court for the first time last February 12. Not exactly the way to start your NBA career but likely worth it if it all worked out in the end, especially if it raised awareness of mental health issues in professional team sports and led to meaningful change. In my pre-game chat with Royce, I offered my support and told him not to give up.

The game Royce played for Rio Grande last February 12 was the first of 12 he would play before leaving the team on what he said was the advice of the Rockets' team physician. The Rockets, however, didn't agree with Royce and asked him to report back to the Vipers for an additional four games before he ended his season shy of the playoffs and eventual Vipers' championship. In July of last year, Royce was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers for essentially nothing. The Rockets actually sent cash to the Sixers to pay Royce's salary. After spending training camp and part of the preseason with Philadelphia, the team ultimately decided to part ways with Royce. He's currently not employed by an NBA team, although he's still taking home his slightly more than $1.7 million guaranteed with his rookie deal.

I can't imagine how difficult it is to live with any sort of anxiety disorder and I certainly can't begin to put myself in Royce White's situation. In addition to living with a condition that might shut his body down in the wrong environment, Royce is subjected daily to all sorts of disgraceful and hateful tweets from total strangers that appear to be making no effort to understand what it is he is dealing with. I know this because Royce replies to many of these on Twitter. Some of these messages like the one above which is pretty tame shake my faith in human nature.

But if Royce wanted to advance a cause to make the future better for guys with mental illnesses that come after him in the NBA, his lack of a job in that league is surely damaging his visibility enormously and I can't help thinking that Royce is in this situation partially of his own doing. His departure from the Vipers last year was clearly alarming to the Rockets and I have read reports that they found out about him leaving Hidalgo from Royce's Twitter account, a forum he has used relentlessly to embarrass and criticize the Rockets. He always had them on the defensive and for their part they refused to engage in a war of Tweets. It's easy for me to see that this type of behavior would be off putting to a potential employer.

When I first started following Royce White, I saw his message and his cause as important and I thought he did too. I don't believe he's done fighting but I believe he is done with professional basketball, which makes him eminently less important to the media and admittedly to NBA fans like me. He doesn't appear to be making efforts to re-enter the D-League and he recently gave what he called his last sports interview. My opinion is if he were willing to compromise a little more, he'd still be in the NBA fighting his fight in the spotlight of networks like ESPN and HBO; they are not so likely to give him any attention any more.

The Houston Rockets' General Manager, Daryl Morey, recently called Royce White the worst NBA first round pick ever. That seems a little harsh to me. Morey had to know selecting Royce carried great upside as well as great risk and I honestly don't believe he would have done that had he not had three first round picks in that draft. Having said that, I believe Royce is currently the only first round NBA pick who has signed a contract and not played a single minute in the regular season other than Nerlens Noel, who has been deliberately kept out of game action by the Philadelphia 76ers after last year's draft. I just think when I look back at what has happened between June of 2012 and now, Royce White seems to me to have missed an opportunity.

My Twitter account is dedicated to my love of the NBA and I'm unfortunately no longer following Royce White. No relevance to the NBA equals no following. I wish him all the luck in the world and I hope that one day he proves me as a doubter and comes back and plays in the NBA and makes a difference beyond that sport for future athletes.

Sitting Courtside In Hidalgo

Of all the places I am visiting on my basketball tour of Texas, I was looking forward to going to Hidalgo most of all. Seriously. It's a tiny town literally on the Mexican border. How can it get better than this? I have always had semi romantic notions of staying in small town America on vacations but never do it because quite honestly there's no reason for me to stay in small towns. I'm a city guy, what can I say? But Hidalgo has an NBDL team and that gives me a reason to stay for one night at least. Tuesday night their team, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, were hosting the Maine Red Claws (best name and logo in the NBDL, hands down). So Tuesday afternoon, I moved in to Hidalgo's Super 8, which is literally across the driveway from the arena, at a cost of about $50 and took in some hoops that night.

The Hidalgo area was first settled by the Spanish in 1749, meaning this area was inhabited well before the Republic of Texas was created. The town itself went through a series of names before finally settling on Hidalgo in 1885. Today the town has all of 11,000 or so residents. I suppose it's sort of a suburb of McAllen (population 123,000) and Brownsville (population 178,000) but suffice it to say there's more nothing than something around Hidalgo, mostly fields for crops or cattle. For perspective for those of you reading in northern Virginia, the population of Arlington is about 190,000.

The town sits right on the Rio Grande in the Rio Grande Valley, which is one of the richest ecosystems in the southwest United States. The sizeable Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, which contains 400 species of birds and over 250 species of butterflies is nearby and serves as a significant tourist attraction in the area. In the town of Hidalgo itself, there's not a whole lot to see. The most exciting attractions in town are the Old Hidalgo Pumphouse and a staue of a giant killer bee. Apparently the killer bee was first discovered in the United States in Hidalgo. Good times!

Following the Texas Legends before them, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers were an expansion team, joining the NBDL for the 2007-2008 season. They have spent their entire six year history playing in the Rio Grande valley. In their third season, they managed to win the D-League finals and were the runner up the following season so the team has experienced some pretty good success in a short period of time. For perspective, they have as many championships as my Washington Wizards in about one tenth the time. Apples to oranges comparison, I know.

The Vipers play at the State Farm Arena which, according to the venue's website, seats between 5,500 and 6,800 for basketball. That's a little more than the Dr. Pepper Arena in Frisco holds but still way less than the 20,000 or so at Verizon Center. The State Farm Arena website lists the hockey and concert capacity but not the basketball capacity, like basketball doesn't matter or something. The hockey capacity is 5,500. I'm assuming the building holds slightly more for hoops since folks, including me, sit on top of the ice.

Just as I did in Frisco two nights earlier, I paid far less than the price of an NBA game for my Vipers ticket. My center court, second row seat in Hidalgo cost me $50, which is the most pricey D-League ticket I bought on this trip. That price compares to between $850 and $1,250 at Wizards home game at Verizon Center. This game is four to six percent of that price. Beers at the State Farm Arena are $5.75 for 16 oz. of Budweiser (cans only) so only 10 percent cheaper. Funny how the price of beer doesn't change much from the NBA to the minor leagues.

When I got to the game, I actually had a rude surprise waiting for me. The second row ticket that I bought on Ticketmaster had been sold to a season ticket holder since I bought the ticket and therefore wouldn't be honored. Instead of my second row seat, they moved me courtside on the Vipers bench side of the court. OK by me. Definitely the first time I have sat courtside anywhere and it definitely made the game more exciting, although I had to get used to players and coaches walking in front of me during the game. The game itself was a no defense affair, a 139-122 victory for the Vipers. Former Wizard Shelvin Mack plays for the Red Claws so it was good to see Shelvin play again even though he didn't have the best game of his D-League career.

But the main excitement for me in this game was the chance to get to see Royce White once again play basketball. I became intrigued with Royce last year during the NCAA tournament and have followed his saga since, a story which hopefully gets way better starting with Tuesday's game. Royce White was the 16th selection in the 2012 NBA Draft. He was selected as the second of three first round draft picks held by the Houston Rockets this past year. But to date, Royce has not played a minute of NBA basketball for the Rockets for various reasons including depth at his position, sitting out and being suspended by the team. The majority of his non-playing time has been caused by a dispute he has been engaged in with the Rockets about his mental fitness and how that affects his ability to play basketball safely. Royce suffers from general anxiety disorder which affects, among other things, his ability to travel, especially by airplane, which a number of people in the press and public have falsely latched on to as his only source of anxiety.

His dispute with the Rockets, which has been featured on ESPN's Outside The Lines and HBO's Real Sports, centered on his contention that he needs an independent qualified medical professional to have the final say on his ability to play basketball on any given day. He wrestled with this issue during his collegiate career at the University of Minnesota, where he was not entirely successful, and Iowa State University, where he played a full season and led the Cyclones in his one and only season last year in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks per game. He is clearly a talented basketball player, a fact driven home to me this past summer in Las Vegas where he dominated the paint against the Wizards in a game I attended during summer league play. Anyway his saga with the Rockets led to suspension without pay by the team on January 6 and an eventual resolution to the situation on January 23 with an agreement for Royce to report to the Rio Grande Valley Vipers on February 11, which happened to be Monday.

Sitting courtside allowed me the chance to talk to Royce before the game and let him know how much I supported him and how I hoped he didn't become this generation's Curt Flood (look it up) breaking ground for generations of players but getting blackballed in the process. Royce allowed that he could be blackballed for making his own stand but said he'd be OK financially which was my main concern. Royce is a smart guy and that comes across in interviews and conversations. He also noted that he feels lucky just to be playing the NBDL, advocating that most of the guys at this level are just as good as they are in the NBA. He's lying here and it's false modesty. Royce is better than the D-League and he's not going to be here too long in my opinion. His game was a little rusty but how good he can be showed in his passing. His second assist of the night was just gorgeous.

It took Royce forever to tie his shoes. Not surprisingly. He also wore his socks inside out. I wish I'd noticed that when I was talking to him. I'd love to know what that is about.

For some reason, I love water towers.