The Basketball Diagrams

In a recent commercial, I noticed that the Raptors’ Fred VanVleet was wearing a T-shirt with an odd triangular logo that looked like one of those adaptors they used for record holes. But after a few times seeing the ad, I realized that the symbol looked like an “F” and a “V,” so I wondered if it was his personal logo.

Years ago, I made a post about athletes with their own logos, so this shouldn’t surprise me. But still — much as I identify with VanVleet as a fellow vertically-challenged person, and admire his fighting back from many challenges to become an important member of a top team — he is the second-string point guard. In contrast, the athletes I found with symbols were among the best ever at their respective sports. But I did a little digging, and was surprised to find that most of the Raptors line-up have their own logos:

It turns out that although those earlier logos were created by equipment manufacturers to associate products with the athlete, today’s players are often taking it upon themselves to create a symbol for themselves. Indeed, Fred VanVleet will sell you one of his logo shirts, so he’s essentially doing for himself what Nike et al will do for the biggest stars in the game. Also, Kyle Lowry invited logo designs, but he’s still going with clothing that just has “7” on it at least for now.

In case you’re wondering where the rest of team is on this, Danny Green doesn’t have one, but his podcast does. And coach Nick Nurse has a hat with his initials on it, though that was supposedly a gift. I’m left wondering how Marc Gasol got left out of the fun. He’s a newcomer to the team, but he was a star for Memphis for many years, so I’m left wondering if this is unique to the Raptors.

I’m sure a star studded team like the Warriors all have their own logos. Well, the famous ones, anyway; their bench probably just has “Hello my name is” stickers. So I’ll look at Eastern Conference rivals the Milwaukee Bucks. Not surprisingly, their star Giannis Antetokounmpo has one, though it’s not real creative. And better still, I found a mnemonic for spelling his name. But what about his less-famous teammates? I went looking, and I couldn’t find one for Eric Bledsoe or Brook Lopez, though Khris Middleton has one that I don’t entirely understand.

So this is a weird Raptors tradition, like Jurassic Park or Drake. Hopefully they can spin this into a new way of winning over free agents: sign with the Raptors and no matter your role with the team, you get your own logo, and as many endorsements as you have time for.