NBA Scrambles After Fans Roast Digital Court Graphics in Game 2

The NBA officially has a crisis on its hands.

Despite the NBA Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers being tied at 1-1, fans are outraged over the lack of nostalgia on the court.

We used to be a proper country. There used to be a massive Larry O’Brien decal on the floor. Player introductions featured enormous trophies by the tunnel. During Game 1, that pageantry was completely missing—and fans noticed. Posts complaining about how empty these Finals felt reached millions of impressions online.

Some online commentators noted that large court designs have been scaled back over the last decade to promote player safety. That’s one reason why broadcasts now feature a major uptick in digital ads superimposed onto the floor.

After Game 1, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told fans that the nostalgic logos could potentially return. 

The NBA and ESPN clearly heard the backlash—but must have found it too difficult to get actual court decals produced in time. So instead, they superimposed two awkwardly placed, low-resolution Larry O’Brien trophies onto the court.

That move might’ve actually been more disrespectful than just leaving the court blank.

During Game 1, some fans had already complained that the NBA puts more effort into court design for the Emirates NBA Cup—the controversial in-season tournament introduced in 2023—than for the actual Finals.

Even those putrid Cup courts looked better than the grainy O’Brien graphics. Social media quickly piled on, calling the visuals “tremendously forced” and “embarrassing.”

Then came what might be the strangest twist yet. At halftime of Game 2, the broadcast abruptly replaced the Larry O’Brien trophies with generic NBA Finals logos.

By the third quarter, the court looked like a NASCAR vehicle—digital logos from various sponsors scattered everywhere, completely crowding the broadcast.

The NBA is in a tough spot. It can’t exactly go back to plastering giant decals all over the floor after citing safety concerns. But fans clearly expect the Finals to feel like the Finals—and right now, they don’t.

Game 3 is coming. The league has a chance to make things right. Whatever they come up with can’t be worse than what we saw Sunday night.