Bay Area Sports Blog

The Warriors unveiled their new logo today and the reaction was mostly positive. UniWatch’s Paul Lukas called the team’s nod to its past a swell logo, while Ball Don’t Lie’s Trey Kerby says the new look, which features the yet-to-be-completed Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge, jumps into the top 5 of all NBA logos.

So yeah, high praise all around, even if there were some questions about the ‘SF’ secondary logo. Just don’t get the critics started on the typeface. Woooooo boy.

Says Lukas:

Copperplate Gothic is sooooo early 1990s, guys.

Says Golden State of Mind:

I like the new logo, but someone please fix the font! My word, they really messed that one up.

Says @Bloomizzle:

It looks like someone’s project from Typography 101. Copperplate Gothic? Bleeeech.

Poor Frederic W. Goudy. Everyone hates your font, or at least the idea of putting it on an NBA uniform. According to MyFonts.com, Copperplate Gothic is “often seen in advertisements, but it has also made a place for itself in private and business correspondence and corporate design.” Maybe Berkeley Old Style, one of Goudy’s favorite fonts, would’ve been a better choice. Then again, it’s the Warriors. Be thankful there’s at least something to like about the redesign.

Why yes, we did need a gimmick to tie together several different events in Bay Area sports tonight. And that gimmick is…

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Percent chance the Washington Wizards had to win the top pick in the NBA Draft lottery*. But they did, and the second big blow was the 76ers moving up, pushing Golden State from fourth to sixth. So there’s now a 90 percent chance the Warriors will draft a no-name or trade the pick.

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Innings it took for the San Francisco Giants to finally beat the San Diego Padres. The baseball gods thought about extending this one to 120 innings but decided the hearts of Giants fans probably couldn’t take it.

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The most exciting night of the Warriors’ season is upon us. The NBA Draft Lottery: Where Probability Happens. Golden State, which has picked where it was slotted to pick in each of the last six years, is in the No. 4 slot tonight. The Dubs have a 10 percent chance of landing the No. 1 pick and a 33 percent chance of moving up at least one spot.

The Warriors will move one step closer to welcoming a new addition to the team during tonight’s lottery while also saying goodbye to an old friend. The “Flying W” will adorn general manager Larry Riley’s podium in Seacaucus, NJ, before being retired forever. The team is launching an Easter Egg-style hunt for fans to participate in over the next month to reveal the Warriors’ new primary logo. The first challenge? Watch the draft lottery and enter the pick the Warriors are awarded.

The team adopted its current logo in 1997 and the thunderbolt-toting blue man has hardly been a symbol of success, so a change is welcome. The new logo may have been leaked (above), but we suppose you’ll have to complete the hunt to be sure. At least that’s what Chris Cohan would like you to believe.

So yes, two days later, Dallas Braden’s perfect game still stands. Bud Selig hasn’t put an asterisk next to it because of low attendance, nor has he declared the game a draw because both teams played hard. Alex Rodriguez wasn’t able to buy an erasing of the history books.

Braden was on NPR on Monday and tonight he’ll give the Top 10 list on Letterman. That’s when it will become real, probably. Letterman!

There has been much, much analysis of Braden’s perfect game, but most of it focuses on one solitary facet: How? As in, how the hell did that happen? As in, how did a guy with 17 previous career wins go out and toss the holy sacred perfecto? We loved this portrait from SI’s Joe Posnanski: “No, he was never highly regarded. He was not regarded at all.”

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Sacramento’s Tyreke Evans was named the NBA’s Rookie of the Year Thursday and Dell Curry’s lack of a vote was not the difference. Phew.

Evans, who became the fourth rookie to average 20 points, five rebounds, and five assists, received 491 points, including 67 first-place votes. Curry, who emerged as a legitimate superstar in the final few months of the season, finished second with 391 points and 43 first-place votes.

It’s OK, Steph. At least your name is still more easily transformed into a food-related pun than Reke’s.  In honor of the Twitter topic of the day, which produced such gems as SzechJuwan Howard and Pad Thai Lawson, we give some of the Warriors the #basketballfoods treatment.

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Stephen Curry teed it up today at the Quail Hollow Championship Pro-Am in Charlotte,  carding three birdies while playing alongside PGA tour pro Steve Lowery. The other members of Steph’s group included his pops, Dell, NASCAR driver Michael Waltrip, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief Rodney Monroe. Chief Monroe has to be pleased that a slideshow of his round with the Currys is now available on the same page as the ever popular weekly collection of mugshots of Mecklenburg’s finest.

We’re pretty sure it would be a lot of fun to hit the links with Stephen Curry, which is why we’re considering bidding on this round of golf for for three with the Warriors rookie despite lacking both disposable income and much of a short game. The Nellie stories alone would be worth the winning bid. All proceeds benefit Davidson BUZZKILL, an event organized by Curry’s freshman roommate, Bryant “White Lobster” Barr, that raises money to send insecticide-covered bed nets to African villages.

The fundraiser includes a 3-on-3 double-elimination basketball tournament and a serious incentive to raise some cash to help prevent malaria. From the site:

There is a $50 cost per team to enter the tournament, however, the team that raises the most money beyond the entry fee will have first choice in a draft of Davidson “Elite Players” to coach their team during the tournament. Former Davidson player and current Golden State Warrior, Stephen Curry, will also be eligible in the draft to coach your team!

AWESOME. If you’d like to help sponsor the Bay Area Sports Blog team, hit us up at freakanchise@gmail.com or on Facebook. Think of the blog material! Think of the children!

Of course the Golden State Warriors finished the season like this: Devean George fouled out of Wednesday’s game against Portland, then re-entered thanks to a rule loophole.

It’s a loophole the Warriors are already familiar with. Back in January, Stephen Curry fouled out but had to stay in the game (after the Warriors were assessed a technical) because the team didn’t have enough players to come in. Wednesday’s game was almost the same, except that the Warriors had the players on the bench. They were just injured and Don Nelson didn’t want to insert them in the game. But because they were suited up, the refs made them come in, “get injured” and/or foul out, and leave the bench area before George finally reentered. Here’s the video. It’s about as thrilling as fouling can get.

Also ridiculous, in a good way: Curry had a career-high 42 points Wednesday, won the Rookie of the Month award for April, and made another strong case for Rookie of the year. Ridiculous in a bad way: The Warriors’ win moved them behind the Sacramento Kings into fourth in the lottery odds. Meh. Wesley Johnson at No. 5 still sounds good to us.

We knew there was something negative about being a former NBA star with a son who’s the next coming of Steve Nash and will likely make millions of dollars so you can retire in greater luxury than you already were going to. For Dell Curry, the yoke he must shoulder is this: He can’t vote for the Rookie of the Year award this year. Sucker!

The NBA revoked Dell Curry’s vote because Stephen Curry of your Golden State Warriors is one of the leading candidates. Wow, NBA. Nepotism discrimination much? You just assume Dell would vote for Steph? Maybe he likes Tyreke Evans’ commercials or Brandon Jennings’ assist stats.

In case you’re an NBA Rookie of the Year voter not named Dell Curry, the Bay Area media will give you plenty of reasons to take a long look at Steph. He fought Monta Ellis for the ball and his stats. He’s making a huge late-season push. He has a “Huxtable life story” (that one’s for you Dell).

Curry currently leads the NBA.com rookie rankings and Vegas doesn’t know what to do. Ah, who are we kidding, Vegas always knows what to do.

For us, it comes down to this: Curry is just a better basketball player than Evans. ‘Reke is exciting, and so is Curry in a where-the-hell-did-that-move-come-from kind of way. But Curry has a basketball IQ that is just off-the-graph immeasurable. Curry should be the Rookie of the Year. Hey NBA, if you’re looking for somebody to fill in for Dell Curry, we do cover the Bobcats sometimes.

Believe them.

First, Harriet (Oh, Har-riet) from So I Marrried an Axe Murderer makes an amazing catch from the Virgin America Loft. Can she hit too? Do we have a third option in right field?

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Occasionally we’ll post rebuses: word puzzles based on images. Put the images together and you’ve got a name.

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