Who is the player on the nba logo
Why Is Jerry West "The Logo"?
today's video is going up around one
year after my first video and this is
also my 100th video 100 videos in one
year 7.5 k subscribers and 1.15 million
views it's been an amazing journey that
I look forward to continuing I'm
mentioning all of this because this
being an MBA channel I figured a for my
100th video I should talk about not a
player or a team or anything like that
instead let's talk about the NBA as a
whole or more specifically the origin of
the NBA logo now who is the logo
well Jerry West a point guard of the
Lakers in the 60s and 70s is the
unspoken NBA logo in his 14 seasons in
the NBA Jerry West was an all-star every
single year of his career he won a
championship and went to the finals
eight times won an MVP and was the only
player to ever win a Finals MVP in a
losing effort
Jerry scored 25,000 points in his career
and he's on the list of the 50 greatest
players of all time
West is one of the best players in NBA
history and he was a top 5 player in the
league in its early years the origin of
the logo the logo was created in 1971 to
celebrate the 25th anniversary of the
league at the time the NBA was in fierce
competition with the ABA the American
Basketball Association the league that
had players such as artist Gilmour
George Gervin and Julius Erving back
then professional basketball wasn't
owned by one league so the NBA
commissioner at the time J Walter
Kennedy wanted to create some separation
between the NBA and ABA making the NBA
the go-to league for professional
basketball
neither league really had an official
logo nothing too recognizable anyways so
Commissioner Kennedy who understood the
value of branding wanted to give the NBA
a
logo to make the NBA more recognizable
as a brand now you might think that
something as simple as a logo isn't that
big of a deal but consider this how
often do you subscribe to a YouTube
channel that doesn't have a profile
picture just a white letter with the
colored background even if the channel
has a great video a brand makes it look
reliable and professional even if your
logo is a rusty bucket and a picture
frame it's still better than nothing
so Commissioner Kennedy went to alan
siegel of siegel plus gale to develop an
easy to market logo alan went for a
simplistic design and looked through
photos of the league's top players to
try and create a design that would
capture the essence of the game he
looked at photos of players like will
Chamberland Bill Russell Elgin Baylor
Oscar Robertson and of course Jerry West
and it was a photo of mr. clutch as
Jerry was called that Alan thought
captured the essence of the game Alan
took this photo and created a silhouette
of Jerry it was not a direct trace of
the silhouette which is easy to tell
when you put the photo and logo side by
side for example towards the bottom you
can see both of Jerry's feet which is
not the case of the logo and his shorts
on his left are below the ball in the
photo but above in the silhouette but
nevertheless you can tell that the logo
is Jerry Alan Siegel himself says that
it is but the NBA is reluctant to say
that the logo is Jerry West they just
say that the logo is an interpretation
of NBA players as a whole and they do
this because if the leaked flat out said
that Jerry was the logo the league would
have to pay him a cut every time the
logo is used which would make a West a
very rich man or a way richer man even
if the NBA had to give West only 1% of
the money it would be in the millions
over the past six years the NBA has
earned around 3.6 billion dollars each
year let's say that 20 percent of that
revenue is clothing and branding that
has the NBA logo on it which is actually
probably a conservative estimate
that's 720 million dollars a year that
the logo earns so if west earned a 1% of
that he'd be making 7.2 million a year
that's just 1% realistically is selling
a person's likeness the person would get
at least 20 to 30% of the cut minimum if
Jerry wanted he could sue the NBA and
make bank but he doesn't wes is a very
humble man and he does not care about
the money he does however wish the NBA
would change the logo mostly so we can
stop being asked about it and because
well that leads to the last part of this
video who the logo should be less
believes that the NBA logo should be
Michael Jordan the man who is commonly
considered to be the goat is a pretty
fair pic looking at Jordans case we all
know his resume but for those of you
living under a boulder not a rock MJ for
his career has won six championships in
six attempts five MVPs one defensive
player of the year was a 14 time
all-star and and he has scored the
fourth most points in NBA history 32,000
292 and he is considered by many to be
the greatest player of all time and he
of all people captures the essence of
the game he's a great pick to be the
next NBA logo but there are other
players who are good for the picking
first of all going back 46 years if
you're trying to choose a silhouette of
the essence of the game as Siegel was at
the time you would think that you would
choose a winning player to be the logo
as good of a player as Jerry West was he
was 1 for 8 in the finals
and there was a man that was fairly
responsible for that record Bill Russell
the 11 time NBA champion beat up on the
West's Lakers year after year after year
for those 11 rings so if you're choosing
between a player that is constantly
winning versus a player that is
constantly losing I think the choice for
the essence of the game would pretty
clearly be for the winning player here's
a photo right here that I think
look good for his silhouette I even made
a logo of my own and Photoshop out of
this photo you can tell that I used to
want to be a graphic designer
and that there is a reason that I
decided not to pursue that as my major
it's all right I guess also why would
the league portray a guard in the logo
at the time the NBA was dominated by the
big man Bill Russell and Wilt
Chamberlain were dominating the league
at this time the Bucks recently drafted
a center called Lew Alcindor who would
become Kareem abdul-jabbar it was
average and 16 the season that the logo
was made the NBA was a big man the
league at the time Russell was a big who
was winning rings like it was nothing
back then that the essence of the game
was a big man posting up or grabbing a
rebound or blocking a shot not a guard
dribbling the ball as you can see from
Jerry's highlights ball handling wasn't
exactly polished in the NBA in the 60s
and 70s so it wasn't a huge part of the
game you also could argue that well
chamberlain deserved a spot wilt the
stilt who had a 100 point game in his
career who by 1971 was at the latter
stages of an amazing NBA career having
played 13 seasons at that point so even
at the time choosing Jerry West as a
silhouette to capture the essence of the
game was questionable even in 1971 for
more modern examples Kobe Bryant a
five-time champion an MVP and an 18 time
all-star is another top-tier player in
NBA history who deserves to have his
name in the conversation his ex-partner
Shaquille O'Neal could have been a great
pick his dominance on the game was
absolutely legendary winning four
championships and two MVPs and being
single-handedly the most physically
dominant player in NBA history if you
want your league to be represented by
winning and dominance then Shaq is your
man or maybe you would want to have your
league represented by winning and
professionalism and loyalty if that's
the case and your guy is Tim Duncan a
five-time champion two-time MVP and
fifth
meantime all-star a pretty good guy to
have represent your league and I do
think that LeBron has a great case as
well but I believe that the logo should
go to the player that is retired the
reality is the NBA will likely not
change the logo for a very long time if
the NBA made a player such as Kobe or MJ
the logo I wouldn't guess that they
would be as happy to have their likeness
being sold without making a profit the
NBA really is lucky that Jerry West
doesn't care about the fact that he's
not making money off of the logo because
he very easily could but I'd love to see
it happen because as good as a player
West is he is far from the most
deserving candidate a skinny guard who
played in the 60s is no longer what I
think of when I think of the NBA
well actually it's never what I thought
of so it certainly isn't who fans think
of now even if you were a fan all the
way back to then I think it would also
be cool if the NBA changed the logo
every decade or so to keep up with the
trend of the league a lot of NBA teams
do this every few years changing their
logos imagine after Jordan retired MJ
became the logo while Kobe was
dominating then Kobe retired Kobe became
the logo while LeBron with the top
player the league as he is now and so on
and so on
the logo could almost become a career
achievement like one last accomplishment
to end a legendary career imagine
reading a career resume of MJ that said
six championships five MVPs and a logo
would be really cool could be a point of
pride for players something that players
could fight to accomplish a motivator
you could say and just like the NBA has
vintage nights where let's say the 2016
Lakers wear a 1960s Lakers style jersey
the NBA could sell vintage logo clothes
and things like that an interesting idea
that I would like to see come to reality
thanks to everyone who's been with me on
this 100 video journey I look forward to
the next 100
and if this is the first video of mine
that you are seeing make sure to LIKE
and subscribe for more NBA content like
this and cue the outro music
[Music]
[Music]
you
[Music]
