(Photos) NBA: Nets Change Colors & Unveil New Logo Designed By Jay-Z As Part of Relocation to Brooklyn

Posted by Sabrina B. @gametimegirl

New name. New borough. New arena. New logo, too.

The Brooklyn Nets unveiled their brand-new logo on Monday morning. Check it out after the jump & let us know what you think…

The Nets will have a black and white color scheme, which pays homage to the old New York subway signage system.

The Nets will have a pair of primary logos. The first features a shield and the name “NETS” accompanied by the letter “B” inside a basketball and “BROOKLYN” underneath. The second features the letter “B” inside a basketball wrapped around “BROOKLYN NEW YORK.”

“Hello Brooklyn! I’ve been waiting a long time to say that,” center Brook Lopez said at the team’s formal logo unveiling at the Modell’s Sporting Goods store across the street from the team’s new home, the Barclays Center.

The Nets will move into the $1 billion arena at the start of the 2012-13 season.

“We’ve been waiting a long time for this,” CEO Brett Yormark said. “The Brooklyn Nets are finally part of the conversation.”

Yormark said that the Nets’ circular logo will be at center court at the Barclays Center. Yorkmark referred to the shield as “the shield of Brooklyn,” and it will appear on the team’s shorts.

Team part owner Jay-Z played an instrumental role in the design of the logo.

“The Brooklyn Nets logos are another step we’ve made to usher the organization into a new era,” Jay-Z said in a statement. “The boldness of the designs demonstrate the confidence we have in our new direction. Along with our move to Brooklyn and a state-of-the-art arena, the new colors and logos are examples of our commitment to update and refine all aspects of the team.”

The hip-hop mogul and Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, the majority owner of the Nets, were not in attendance.

A spokeswoman for Prokhorov said he “loves” the new logo. According to the spokeswoman, the logo began being designed a year ago, and discussions were still taking place as of a few weeks ago.

Brooklyn has not had a professional sports franchise since the Dodgers left in 1957. Developer Bruce Ratner, who pushed for the move to Brooklyn beginning a decade ago, said the curse of former Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley, who moved the team to Los Angeles, is dead as of “[Monday].”

The Nets will unveil their new uniforms sometime in the fall. They are the only team in the league to have a black and white color scheme.

NBA Deputy commissioner Adam Silver isn’t going to root for the Nets, per se but believes it’s important for the team to get off to a good start as it begins to cultivate an identity in Brooklyn.

“They’ll get it done. They were unlucky last season, and it didn’t help that they were playing in a temporary arena and about to make a move,” Silver said. “Cementing their identity in Brooklyn, I believe, will help in player recruitment as well.”

General manager Billy King wants the team to be competitive immediately.

“We’re not gonna build slowly,” King said.

Coach Avery Johnson said that hopefully, “at his time next year you guys will be in my press conference for the 2013 playoffs.”

King has a lot of work to do. The Nets wrapped up their 35th and final year in New Jersey with a 22-44 record. They have not made the playoffs since 2006-07.

Superstar point guard Deron Williams has reiterated his intentions to opt out and become a free agent. Williams said he’d like to come back and be part of the first team in Brooklyn Nets’ franchise history, but he’s expected to be heavily courted by a number of suitors, most notably his hometown Dallas Mavericks.

Lopez, a restricted free agent, wants to stay with the organization that drafted him. Small forward Gerald Wallace has said he’d like to return but plans to opt out because he wants a multi-year deal. Power forward Kris Humphries is an unrestricted free agent.

MarShon Brooks, Anthony Morrow, Johan Petro and Jordan Williams are the only Nets who have guaranteed contracts for the upcoming season.

Merchandise featuring the Brooklyn Nets’ new identity is available at Brooklynnets.com and the NBA Store on Fifth Avenue.

WRITTEN BY Mike Mazzeo | Special to ESPNNewYork.com & FULL STORY HERE
————————

Per NETS WEBSITE:

Here it is.

The logo. The black. The white.

The Brooklyn Nets have arrived. As a born-and-raised Brooklyn resident, whose parents still live here and work minutes away from the Barclays Center, it’s a day I’ve been waiting for since the proposal was first floated in 2003. And it’s a day that brings a new look to professional sports, a timeless one grounded in city history: the signage of New York’s unparalleled subway system.

The new primary logo – created by Brooklyn’s own JAY Z – retains the shield from its previous iteration, and adds that iconic Brooklyn ‘B’ to the basketball that has been part of every logo since the franchise’s 1967 inception as the Americans. The Dodgers had their lettermark, and the Nets have added another model for the borough to bear. “Brooklyn,” of course, is spelled out below. Nets CEO Brett Yormark called this “the new badge for Brooklyn,” and JAY Z believes the design’s boldness demonstrates confidence in the new direction.

The secondary logo, of the ‘B’ inside a basketball, surrounded by the words “Brooklyn New York” immediately popped an image into my head: “Planet Brooklyn.” It’s hard to explain the pride native Brooklynites feel for their home (“BK,” “Bucktown,” the “Brooklyn Zoo”), how outsiders don’t get it and never really will; one measure might be trying to think if you’ve ever met someone from Brooklyn who said they were from “New York.” Another could be the lines I once wrote in a spoken word poem:

I like to sport attitudes like
I’m better than you
because I’m from Brooklyn
… and that’s just how we do.

Perhaps then, it seems odd that pride has found a partner in loss, the focus often narrowed upon 1957, when the beloved Dodgers left for “La-La Land” – as Borough President Marty Markowitz described Los Angeles Thursday. But “Dem Bums” wove themselves into the community in ways that perhaps are no longer feasible.

My elementary school in Midwood, P.S. 193, was named “The Gil Hodges School,” after the first baseman for the “Boys of Summer” teams of the late ’40s and ’50s; he once lived across the street with his wife Joan, who remained long after Hodges passed in 1972. Hodges remains the player to receive the most votes for admittance to the Baseball Hall of Fame without ever crossing the threshold, fitting for a standout on teams that lost four World Series between 1947 and ’54 – also finishing second in the National League three times and third once – before breaking through for the borough’s only championship in 1955. “Wait ’til next year!” became a rally cry that resonates even still.

Brooklyn, you have only to wait for the fall.