The NBA is leaning into change this season as it rolls out its new In-Season Tournament, and nothing might be as visible as the courts teams will play on during the tournament games themselves.
On Monday, the league unveiled the home court each team will play on during the In-Season Tournament (Reminder: Games will be held on Tuesdays and Fridays in November.) Each court will be a departure from the regular design at each arena. For five teams — Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago Bulls, Portland Trail Blazers and New Orleans Pelicans — it will be the first time they have had an alternative court design. It is all part of the league’s intention to sport a whole new aesthetic for the tournament, with teams playing in City Edition jerseys, wearing new shooting shirts and even new magnets on the ball racks.
“We understand that we’re all iterating and trying to figure out what are the best ways we can elevate this from the regular season so that people understand how important this is,” said Christopher Arena, the NBA’s head of on-court and brand partnerships.
This will be the first time every court across the league will have the same theme. Each will take its color scheme inspiration from the team’s uniforms and highlight one color for the body of the court and apron. There will be a 16-foot lane from end to end that Arena says is supposed to signify a runway to Las Vegas, the site of the tournament’s semifinals and finals. It also will be the first time the courts are completely painted, without any wood seen. The boundary lines between the court and out of bounds will be expanded from two inches to four inches wide, to help the referees and players distinguish out of bounds — a league rule in place in cases where the body and apron of a court are the same color.
The courts were designed on an accelerated timetable, with the NBA sourcing 30 new courts it could sand, paint and refinish, then working with its three authorized court manufacturers and 10 suppliers to get them done in time for November. Most have already been delivered to the teams.
“This isn’t normal,” Arena said. “It is not within the timelines of court manufacturing to take on 30 courts and redesign them and paint them and get them to team facilities within the span of three or four months.”
The courts are noticeably louder and more brash than the usual designs. The league stayed away from very dark colors and white because of how they would present on television but otherwise leaned into more colorful designs.
“The game of basketball, you always have this wood court,” Arena said. “There have been some teams and universities and colleges that probably more than any have pushed the limits a little bit. I think the Oregon court is a really good example with all the trees and the forest. A few other floors have done a lot with stains, to show skylines and things of that nature. And I think for the most part, our aesthetic direction of the courts as a league has been to treat it as a stage, certainly, but allow the focus of the game to be the game. To be the players and these dynamic athletes who can do incredible things in the air, in speed, with a ball. And so we’ve never really wanted to distract from that in any way. And we’ve got these historic uniforms that these teams playing. We’ve just introduced the City Edition uniforms as an architecture to really celebrate these hyperlocal stories. And so, we think we do that. We think for the bulk of our season we are reinforcing that.
“But to take 60 games out of that season, and to put the focus on the stage and to really have something from a broadcast standpoint, whether you’re watching on your phone, your iPad or whatever medium you have, to have something that really forces you to stop and look and focus, we think that was the right thing to do for this tournament.”
The courts, like the tournament itself, will be one of many first impressions the league hopes to nail when the In-Season Tournament tips off with group play Nov. 3.
