A few days ago, photos surfaced of Jay-Z in a shirt emblazoned with the new logo for the Brooklyn Nets. Despite his very public ownership of a very small stake in the NBA franchise, there was reason for skepticism: mostly, the insignia appeared as if it were designed in MS Paint by Canal Street bootleggers. One expected a CD-ROM pre-loaded with 1,000 free hours of AOL to tumble out of Jay-Z’s pocket.
On Monday, the unfamiliar Nets logo was disappointingly confirmed as the genuine article. Shooting for aggressive simplicity, the stark logo — a “B” inside a basketball, topped by the word “NETS” — has a simple black-and-white color scheme. Outside of the vague “B,” there are no visual markers to indicate the team hails from Brooklyn. In comparison to NBA logos from the past, it resembles the emblem used by the Rochester Royals, a franchise that later leapfrogged across America until majestically morphing into the Sacramento Kings.
Sure. Why not? I wonder if Hanley Ramirez, who posted this photo to his Twitter account, has a favorite Nirvana song. "Pay to Play," probably. (Just kidding.) Seriously though, Jay-Z looks like he has no idea who Hanley Ramirez is.
"Can you believe ‘15’?" one Detroit Lions defender asked after his team's 45-10 immolation of Tebow and the Denver Broncos. "Come on — that’s embarrassing. I mean, it's a joke. We knew all week that if we brought any kind of defensive pressure, he couldn’t do anything. In the second half it got boring out there. We were like, 'Come on — that's your quarterback? Seriously?'"
The Minnesota Lynx beat the Atlanta Dream on Friday to claim the organization’s first WNBA championship. The 15th WNBA season, in the books. So now what? While this assuredly isn't true for all of the players, I'm assuming some members of the Dream and Lynx will join the rest of us in what could be a long fall … and winter … and spring full of non-stop banter about the NBA lockout and the present and future condition of the fractured league.
Sounds miserable.
Fortunately for the players of the WNBA, there is another option. An option that not only keeps these talents on the hardwood, but also irreversibly transforms the league from something that is oft overlooked to to a profitable, wildly popular enterprise.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Monday.
The emerging month-long nightmare for the Boston Red Sox is closer than ever to being realized. With a 6-3 loss to the lowly Baltimore Orioles, Boston is now tied atop the wild card race with Tampa Bay. Their September record fell to 6-19, they no longer have their best pitcher available, and tonight's starter, Erik Bedard, is just 5-9 on the year. "But at least we've got our dignity," said manager Terry Francona, not realizing that Jonathan Papelbon had drawn the word "FART" on the front of his hat.
Earlier this week, Nike announced LeBron James’ new shoe, the LeBron 9. Retailing at $170, the sneaker will go on sale in October, when it will promptly — well, what? In the offseason of his discontent, does James’ brand still move product like it used to? Nike surely has bundles of market research detailing exactly how key demographics’ consumer relationships with LeBron might have changed after The Decision and Miami's NBA Finals collapse. They could have saved some money, though, and asked hip-hop.
Here at The Triangle, we are committed to answering your most burning questions. In the second issue of our mailbag, the Bake Shop, we discuss a new era of sports films, the people we’d want to be reborn as, and false prophets.
