Pacers’ new court design is hit-and-miss

The Indiana Pacers have officially unveiled their new court design, which has emboldened a few aspects of its predecessor’s simplicity while unnecessarily complicating others.

As can be seen above, the out-of-bounds area is now painted navy with lines symbolizing the team’s growth and Indiana farmland while being accented with an understated white block letter font to provide greater contrast to the playing space, when compared to the previous look’s more bland side-by-side, two-tone stain combination.

Another upgrade is the logo choice. Ditching the badge style in favor of the basic navy “P” with the speeding yellow basketball outlined is cleaner and commands more attention, though it could probably stand to be enlarged.

Unfortunately, those subjectively positive tweaks are littered by the unwelcome addition of the “How the States Got Their Shapes” logo inside the three-point arcs where the 50th anniversary emblem last resided.

Trying to emphasize that they are the Indiana Pacers, not the Indianapolis Pacers is fine. That’s part of what makes them — along with the Utah Jazz and (sort of) the New York Knicks — unique in comparison to the rest of the league. After all, as fans are so often told, this is Indiana’s team, playing Indiana’s game.

At issue, though, is that the jagged, misshapen outline almost makes it appear more like it belongs in the 8-bit version of Pong (for better jokes of this variety, head over to 8 points, 9 seconds).

Slapping obnoxious corporate logos in the opposing corners probably would’ve created more unsightly competition with the already tacky secondary logo, so credit the Pacers for exercising restraint in that regard. Instead, the unassuming name of the building continues to run parallel to the sideline of the floor.

Overall, while the old look wasn’t busy, it also wasn’t particularly memorable. This, whether positive or negative, most definitely leaves an impression.