by Kevin McCormack
The Wizards unveiled a new look today — new logos, colors + unis. So in the true spirit of the All Ball Blog and to copy our world-famous Horry Scale, here’s a breakdown via the Sager Scale, named after TNT’s-own Craig Sager, he of the ridiculous-looking suits.
New Logo
Let’s preface this by starting with what the Wizards did NOT do today — namely change their name. Longtime Washington owner Abe Pollin — who died in November of 2009 — decided to change the nickname from the Bullets to the Wizards in 1997 for all the right reasons, but they botched the actual “name” part of choosing a new name. The D.C. populace has never rallied around the name “Wizards” and never will. New owner Ted Leonsis has been pretty up front behind the decision-making process behind today’s change, but this was a missed opportunity for a complete re-brand.
As for the new logo? Um, not very original. Basically, they opened up the old logo in Photoshop and switched colors. Sure it’s an upgrade. But after the complete identity overhaul that Leonsis brought to the NHL’s Washington Capitals, this seems a little tame.
They did unveil two new secondary marks, both of which are significantly better than the old DC logo. My hunch is that the primary logo, the finger roll Wizard, will quietly be phased out (in fact, it’s not even present on the new uniforms). But still, every time I see that logo I think of this. Update: Interesting that even Wizards.com is using the new secondary DC logo instead of the re-colored primary logo.
New Uniforms
Ah, now this is better. A nice blend of the old-school Wes Unseld-era with the early 90′s Chris Webber-Juwan Howard-era. Of the home and road jerseys, the home whites are pretty sharp while the road reds have a bit of an MLS soccer vibe to them. Not sure about the shorts piping and the back of the jerseys seems a little too busy — I’ll reserve judgment on those until we see how they look on court during an actual game.
But those are quibbles compared to what the Wiz had been sporting. The turquoisey blue color was just a bad look from the start, and let’s all agree that these uniforms never happened.
Final Grade
3.5 Sagers. Not crazy about keeping the same primary logo with just new colors, but the uniforms themselves are a huge upgrade. Overall, a thumbs up.
Catch up on every single game-winning buzzer beater during the season and see how it rates on the Horry Scale.
why are they still named the wizards? nothing on the jersey resembles a wizard… they should be called the flags or team america… come on now washington
^truth.
very ugly
I will never understood the loyalty to the name “Bullets”. Its okay, but its not like it really has anything to do with the region. The thought process behind renaming them the Wizards was the same thing that drove the name Bullets: alliteration. Remember they used to be the Baltimore Bullets.
As for the logo, the color switch is kind of lame, but if you watched the unveiling, you wouldn’t even know that they kept the Wizard. They actually unveiled two other alternate logos, both of which are much cooler. I’m betting the Wizard will be phased out.
http://www.nba.com/wizards/news/510_2_2011_05_04.html
Agreed – i’m wondering if that monument logo isn’t a sign of what is to come
well that decision in 1997 has served its purpose…
or else it would have been all over the headlines when arena pulled out the gun…
just imagine all the mockery they’d be getting if they were still the bullets…
great dodge by the franchise…
but wizard is a lame name…they should rebrand entirely and forget about the Arena-era
Note: They recolored that logo, but also unveiled two new logos. The one with the Washington monument in the basketball is pretty nice.
[...] they wanted and the fans wanted them to go back to the red, white, & blue days of the Bullets. TWashington Wizards – The Washington Wizards finally released their new logo and jerseys. Rumors were going around for [...]
I kinda liked the blue unis of this past season better.
These look like rejects for a Team USA design.
John Wall even looks miserable wearing it.
The ball logo is kinda nice…but the giant arm logo is horrible…as is the re-colored Wizard finger roll logo.
Any true Bullets/Wiz fan will tell you that they are happy to have the DC arm logo back. It is a symbol of the past where this was an organization that wasn’t a complete joke.
Agreed, they should use the ball logo for just about everything.
I think the Wizards should be renamed the Patriots with their red, white and blue colors. Plus it would avoid them reusing the Bullets name for political and socially reasons.
Genius !
awful idea… why not just name them team america or captain planet if that’s the way you look at it?? no wiz fan would ever want to cheer on any team named the patriots…
There is already a Patriots in the NFL though.
there is definitely a better way of going with red white and blue. you dont need to force the colors together on both home and away jerseys. have white home jerseys with blue down the sides and red outlining washington or something like that. there is too much going on with them… And the wizard logo should have been completely redesigned with a completely different wizard or just get rid of the wizard all together. If you wanted to go with what the fans wanted as colors, you should have shown design samples to the fans so they could pick the jerseys. As a basketball fan im not impressed at all with any of the changes
design samples?? what are you talking about?? obviously if the franchise really wanted fan input they would have realized how awful changing the name originally was…
as a WIZARDS fan i welcome the color change with open arms… as a BASKETBALL fan i applaud the shift back to the glory days of this franchise
ANOTHER.
RED.
WHITE.
BLUE.
Though I do say, Washington D.C. deserves that scheme the most.
I just think there are too many teams which are red white, red blue, red white blue…
*sploooooosh*… thats the sound of me throwing up all over those jerseys..
As Adam said ^^^ John Wall looks so dissapointed wearing that hideous uniform.
And they definately need a name change.
*shiver* those uniforms are terrible.
looks horrible that’s all.
Hahaha!! This is funny..
changing colors won’t improve the team one bit they would still be the same ridiculous squad
1000% agree with you………. Uniforms are horrible
Personally I feel that most of these comments are just people hating something for no good reason. YES, the name and logo of the Wizards have both sucked ever since they changed their name. And YES, maybe there are a few teams with similar colors (heaven forbid). These are by far the best looking uniforms the Wiz have ever worn. Of course it will take more than a change in color and jersey to turn this franchise around… So stop making it sound like they did these thinking they will win the East next season, because that’s not the case. It’s all about slowly modifying the image of this franchise as it evolves under John Wall.
With that being said, I feel that it is apparent that the Wizards name and logo are both in the process of being faded out. Also, after reading rumors about possible name changes (although GM said he has considered changing the name back to the Bullets) and seeing the second logo with the basketball it seems the name The Monuments is a front-runner (not saying that I like that, but it is much better than Wizards). Maybe in a perfect world they could change uniforms to make all you people happy and automatically put them amongst the top seeds in the East, but any true sports fan (especially a Wiz/Bullets fan) knows that this is not possible.
One more note: To the people complaining about the uniform colors being too this and too that (too many stripes, too much red white and blue, I hate the flair on the shorts, etc. blah blah blah) get serious with yourself… If you really dislike the uniforms for something like that you are either just looking for an excuse to complain or you are most likely the definition of that infamous phrase that Kobe got fined $100K for yelling…
Let’s go Wiz, true fans love the old school colors!!!
THE NAME BULLETS WAS FROM THE AREA AND HOW MUCH SHOOTINGS AND CRIMES WAS GOING ON THATS WHY IT WAS THE CHANGE OF THE NAME NOW THE WIZARDS WAS JUST A VOTE FROM THE FANS AND LOCAL PUBLIC . THEY SHOULD BE CALLED THE WASHINGTON PRESIDENTIALS OR THE WASHINGTON MONUMENTS OR EVEN THE WASHINGTON ATTRACTIONS BASED ON WASHINGTON BEING A TOURIST ATTRACTION PLACE IDK JUST TALKING LIKE BARBERSHOP TALK LMAO
the photo is weird! The Size and Height of Wall and McGee is the same. haha
I like the new look but best uniforms in the NBA has to go to the New Orleans Hornets. Except the Mardi Gras jerseys.
oh I think its great maybe it will help to improve their game
They remind me of the old time pepsi cans
The Wizards logo look like it has a swastica in it lol!!
Ugh…I dont like ‘em.
All these unattractive uniforms. Just like the cavs’s new uniforms they got in 09-10, ugly…..
they should be called the patriots
The name needs to change now that the theme has nothing to do with Wizards anymore but I don’t like the name Patriots and they’re never going to bring back the Bullets. If they wanna keep the alliteration theme going I suggest the Washington Watchdogs or if they’re willing to make a few revisions we can have the Washington Wyverns. If we go into names that don’t alliterate they can be the Washington Law or the Washington Emissaries.
they should rename it to:
Washington Navy SEAL team Six
they should change there name to like lighting or something that sounds good
To anyone wondering why they didn’t change the name: changing the uniforms alone was a year-long process. Ted Leonsis said that changing the name is more difficult, and the process could take up to THREE YEARS. So, there’s something to look forward to.
-As for the new uniforms: they’re fine. I’d prefer charcoal grey instead of the blue, though.
-The DC logo is terrible. I can’t believe the design got approved considering how much it resembles genitalia.
-The Monument Ball logo is very well done.
I like these. They are a likeness of the Capitals’ jersey colours. Looks good.
how about the WASHINGTON GUARDS OR WASHINGTON GUARDIANS?