Grantland: Phoenix Suns have 18th-best logo in NBA
Sep 8, 2015, 10:00 AM
Through the years, the Phoenix Suns have had a variety of different logos.
From the early days, when they had a decidedly Western theme to the 90s, when the classic sunburst received an update and to now, when the “PHX” logo became a hit, the team has always done what it could to stick with the times when it came to its look.
The most recent update came in Summer 2013, as the Suns made some tweaks to the the logo that has served as their base since the 1992-93 season. The result? According to Grantland.com’s definitive NBA logo rankings, which were put together by Zach Lowe, the 18th-best look in the league.
His main complaint? The fact that purple has taken a backseat in recent years.
I will never understand the Suns’ recent determination to be Team Halloween, pushing black over that classic purplish blue as the companion to orange. The sunburst should be a no-brainer top-10 mark, but the Suns have imprisoned it within a black jail cell. Either let that baby soar without boundaries, or go back to the purple-blue background that set the league on fire in the mid-1990s:
“That mark literally changed the way logos were done,” O’Grady remembers. “You can see what they were trying to do with the update, but they’ve screwed it up.”
Just having the words underneath the purple-blue block made that old mark feel less oppressive — like it could breathe a bit. The Suns must know what’s up on some level, because they’ve kept the blue as the basis for their secondary flaming-ball logo, which adorned center court for much of the Steve Nash era. That’s a better mark than the current sunburst, but it’s also similar to Miami’s primary logo.
The loss of purple is evident in the team’s jerseys, too, as the only one that features the color is its standard road uniform. Otherwise, the home white, orange alternate, gray alternate and rumored black alternate all feature some combination of orange, black and white.
The number one logo on Lowe’s list belongs to the Chicago Bulls, with the Charlotte Hornets and Miami Heat rounding out the top three.
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