One of the more unpopular aspects of the NBA Cup during its inaugural season came via the courts. While players would complain about an inability to keep their footing on them, fans had some major gripes about how they looked on television, whether that was due to the cumbersome stripe through the middle of the floor or the fact that some teams would go with a color that didn’t show well on the screen — the Miami Heat were a good example of this, as there was a whole lot of red in the design of their court.
On Thursday, the league unveiled the courts for this season’s tournament. In a piece by Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic, fans got to see all 30 of the floors that will be on their screen during tournament nights, all of which got rid of the stripe through the middle of the floor.
As Vorkunov explained, the league got rid of the stripe in the middle of the floor and replaced it with three circles that are designed to “represent the three NBA Cup stages.” And apparently, the league went through a process that included firing up NBA 2K to get a sense of how these will look on television.
Prater, the company the NBA uses to put a finish on its courts, uses drones to give the league a real-time view of the courts as it paints them, and sends along photos as well. The NBA then printed out half-court versions of each court in vinyl and laid them out on a court in Phoenix to do broadcast tests to assess how they looked. Finally, they then used the video game NBA2K to simulate games with the court and get another perspective on how they would look on TV screens.
What is unclear is how players will feel on the courts. For example, Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics slipped and tweaked his groin on a tournament court, and called the way that they played “unacceptable.” We’ll have to wait and see if this remains the case when the NBA Cup begins on Nov. 12.