The league is bringing back a finals tradition not seen since 2009
On Tuesday night, the Oklahoma City Thunder and The Houston Rockets have started The 2025-26 NBA season with a bang by playing an epic double overtime, which the Thunder eventually won thanks to late free throws by Shai Giljus-Alexander. before the game Thunder was celebrating their NBA Finals win from a season ago by receiving championship rings and raising the flag to the rafters.
Speaking of championships, one thing fans have been complaining about for more than two decades now is that the NBA stopped painting the Larry O’Brien trophy and the NBA Finals logo on the court for the last 16 years.
However, on Wednesday, fans were calling for that to finally change achieved their wish.
“The NBA will return to painting the Larry O’Brien trophy at center court and the Finals script logo on the home team’s floor for the Finals starting this season, according to sources. The last time the major trophy was painted on the court was in 2009,” ESPN NBA insider Shams Charania reported on X, formerly Twitter.
Needless to say, fans in the comments section were thrilled.
“We’ve been waiting for this tweet for 15 years,” wrote one fan.
“Our long national nightmare is over,” wrote another.
There really seems to be something sentimental and iconic about the gold trophy painted over the logo during NBA Finals games that gives the contests a special feel that isn’t present in other games. The last time the logos were written on the court, the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Orlando Magic four games to one in the 2009 Finals to give Kobe Bryant his fourth NBA championship.
Fans of all 30 teams this season will be hoping to see their iconic logo grace the court roughly eight months from now when the NBA Finals begin.
2025-10-22 19:54:00
