Kyrie Irving sparked a firestorm this week when he suggested that the late Kobe Bryant should be the NBA’s next logo.
In a postgame news conference, Irving doubled down.
“We want to set a standard and precedent, like this is excellence,” Irving said on Thursday night, after the Brooklyn Nets defeated the Orlando Magic. “Kobe Bryant. Logo. Yes. Needs to happen. I don’t care what anyone says.”
Currently, the logo is a silhouette of an unnamed player who is widely believed to be Jerry West.
This week, Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doc Rivers appeared on "The Rich Eisen Show" and expressed why he disagreed with Irving’s sentiment.
Rivers said:
“I have been asked that, but I don’t know the answer to that. I mean, Michael Jordan would be the logo.
“Listen, if you want a logo, Michael to me, would be it. But I don’t know if you change for change. You usually change things because of history, and you find something out that doesn’t fit. Jerry has been a deserving logo, and I have no problem him continuing to be the logo.
“I mean, what are we going to do, change the logo every 10 years or 20 years? So, I like our logo, and I think we should probably stick with it. I am probably in the minority in that thought.”
Making Bryant the new NBA logo isn’t a new idea. Immediately after his death last year, there was a huge movement to make it happen. Everyone wanted to memorialize Bryant in some capacity, and changing the logo seemed like as good a way as any to do it. That said, for a variety of reasons, it never quite materialized.
Will things be different this time around? Time will tell.
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