Article on Staples Center Logistics for Lakers and Clippers (Including Court Surfaces)

ESPN.com has an article (actually more like a photo essay with extensive captions) on the logistics of Lakers and Clippers games at the teams' shared venue, L.A.'s Staples Center. The piece covers a number of aspects, including public-address announcers, light shows, locker rooms, team stores, and so forth. One section, however, discusses court surfaces.

One thing I didn't know was that, "The NBA requires that each team change its home court every 10 years..." I interpret that as referring to the boards of wood, not the designs. After all, the Celtics have had the same essential floor design for as long as I can remember (going back nearly 50 years). Still, when teams make their decennial change in the physical court, perhaps that is an impetus for some teams to change design, as well.

Also, the teams use different floor-construction companies. The article notes that when the Lakers modify their designs -- mostly tweaks on the basic purple-and-gold scheme -- they must notify their builders "well in advance."

"They actually go out, and they physically choose and pick the wood," [Lakers' game-operations director Kathy] Montoya says. "So when you get a new court, you have to tell them way ahead of time because it takes a while for them to actually pick and choose which (pieces to use)."

The Lakers' arena-mates seem to change their motif more frequently.

The Clippers, previously known for using team colors blue and red in their court designs, underwent a makeover for the 2019-20 season. "We're a blacktop team," [coach] Doc Rivers said in 2018.

San Jose State Tones Down Its Court

I noticed while watching tonight's Utah State at San Jose State game on ESPN2 that the Spartans have toned down their court. The Spartan helmet design remains at center court. However, the huge shields that were in place since 2013 are now gone. With the removal of the shields, the helmet is now more vertically centered than before. Also, the keys are now painted solid blue, whereas they previously were yellow.

College Courts Catching My Eye Early in 2019-20

Two court designs have caught my eye at this early point in the 2019-20 college basketball season.

• It had seemed to me that huge center-court logos were losing popularity compared to a few years ago. No one told that to Louisville, however. A large "Dunking Cardinal" image now adorns the court at the KFC Yum! Center.
• Coastal Carolina's court, which actually was introduced before the 2018-19 season, presents a nice combination of a shellac-based shape of the state of South Carolina, with the school's Chanticleer logo overlaid.

Will Memphis Tigers' New Court Earn Its Stripes?

Via the usual sources, the University of Memphis has a new court for the Tigers, shown here. The design is one of the gaudiest you'll see. The idea of tiger stripes -- let alone ones colored in light and royal blue -- to fill in the keys is pretty inventive. However, keeping the areas inside the three-point arcs a conventional wood color and painting the entire area between the arcs light-blue doesn't work for me.

Washington State Court with Some Novel Features

Via the usual sources, Washington State University will have a new court this season. Two features are of note:

• When we've seen horizontal-strip geographic motifs (skylines, mountain ranges, etc.) on courts in the past, they have appeared along the lower sideline. WSU's, which depicts landmarks throughout the state ("the Cascade Mountains, the Seattle skyline, the Ed Hendler Cable Bridge that spans the Columbia River, the Riverfront Park Pavilion and Clock Tower and the Bryan Clock Tower"), will appear midway up the court, from one key to the other.
• With the men's three-point line being moved further out this season and the women's staying put, most schools will probably paint two different lines, in different colors. WSU's approach will be a little different. The area inside the men's (more distant) three-point arc will be filled in with a single shade of shellac, surrounded by a white line. There will also be a white line denoting the women's arc, giving the men's arc the appearance of being extra-thick. The closest analogy I can think of is from a former UNC-Charlotte court.

UMass Amherst... and UMass Boston

Via the usual sources, the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) will be switching from a parquet floor to one featuring a uniformly light shade of wood with a large shape of the state in a darker shade of shellac. A carryover element from the old court to the new will be a large U, with MASS superimposed, at center-court.

Quite by accident, while I was searching for images of the UMass court, I came upon the unusual court design for the UMass-Boston branch campus. As seen in the video at this link, the bulk of the court is solid blue (except for inside the three-point arcs), with a giant Beacon logo in the middle of the court.

Loyola Marymount the Latest to Go With Outdoorsy Theme

Via the usual sources, Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in Los Angeles has added depictions of palm trees to its court. LMU's trees are a bit more subdued, however, than Cal State Fullerton's.

Another feature of the new LMU court is how, on one side of the center line, the out-of-bounds area and on-the-court trim are maroon, whereas on the other side, they are light-blue.

East Carolina Gets Rid of Distinctive Design; Stony Brook Introduces One

Via Uni-Watch and Matt Rachmiel, we have a couple of announced changes to college-basketball courts.

Back in 2011, East Carolina debuted what, to my knowledge, was a novel concept, namely the inclusion of logo imagery within a state-shape. Specifically, ECU's center-court design included the school's Pirate emblem, embedded within the state of North Carolina. Eight years later, that design is gone, replaced by a more conventional logo. The painted-in keys with fully open jump-ball circles by the free-throw lines are interesting, especially as no jump-balls are ever held there anymore. (The possession-arrow system has long been used instead to determine who gets the ball when opposing players are in joint possession of it.)

Meanwhile, Stony Brook is introducing a novel element. We've seen many schools depict the shape of their state as a shellac background. Stony Brook is depicting one region within a state, namely New York's Long Island, in the background.

With colleges going back into session in the coming weeks, I'm sure we'll see a lot more announcements.

Incarnate Word Court with San Antonio Landmarks

Via the usual sources, the University of the Incarnate Word has a new court featuring images of such San Antonio landmarks as the Alamo and the Tower of the Americas. The new floor can be seen in this time-lapse video of the renovation process.

North Texas Letting Fans Vote on New Floor

Via Uni-Watch (I beat Matt Rachmiel to the punch on this one 😉), the University of North Texas is letting fans vote on the school's new basketball court design. The options are shown here. The option that depicts the Texas state flag over the entire court, using different shades of green, is intriguing.

UPDATE (10/2/19): The winning design has been installed on the floor. It appears to combine elements of two of the designs in the contest: the "diving eagle" at center-court and the Texas flag in the keys.

New Court for Austin Peay

Via the usual sources, Austin Peay will have a new floor design this upcoming season. Compared to the previous court, which featured a lot of red, the new one will be much more conservative. You'll also notice that at midcourt of Austin Peay's floor, there is a Tennessee state-shape, with the "Governor" logo embedded within the state. The only other floor I can think of that includes a logo within a state-shape belongs to East Carolina (pirate imagery within the state of North Carolina).

New Court for Colorado Christian University

Via the usual sources, Colorado Christian University, an NCAA Division II school in Lakewood (outside Denver), has a new court design. We've seen courts with images of skylines and of mountains. This one gives us both!

New West Virginia Court (2019)

Via the usual sources, West Virginia will have a new floor design for next season. The new court will emphasize blue, as opposed to the yellow that dominated the previous court. There will also be a state outline at midcourt, defined through different shades of shellac (like Illinois, Nebraska, Ohio State, and Texas A&M [old and current]).

A video montage of all previous court designs at WVU Coliseum is available here.

New Robert Morris Court

With the U.S. college season now behind us, we're starting to seeing announcements of new court designs for next season.

First up is Robert Morris University in the Pittsburgh area. Frequent contributor Matt Rachmiel writes in (based on a link from Uni Watch) to share his characterization of RMU's new court:

"Very unusual that the sidelines are not the same color and that the color change is not at mid court."

10th Anniversary of the Basketball Courts Blog

Ten years (and one day) ago, this blog debuted with this post. Over the past decade, I (with help from guest-contributor extraordinaire Matt Rachmiel and others) have posted 222 entries. These have received 176,879 pageviews.

For a decade, we've been discussing matters such as painted-in vs. empty keys (discussed in the debut post); using different shades of shellac for different areas of the floor; huge center-court logos (mainly on college floors); state-shape logos at center court (at state universities); city skyline images on courts; and even scenic court motifs such as the beach or a forest.

What innovations will the next ten years bring? I have no idea, but whatever new trends emerge, we'll be here to cover them!

2019 NBA All-Star Game Court

Via the usual sources, a photo of the court for this year's NBA All-Star Game in Charlotte has been released. This Twitter thread of messages contains the court, would-be designers' alternative versions, past Charlotte Hornets floors, and past NBA All-Star Game floors.