NBA In-Season Tournament: At least the Orlando Magic are bringing back the star

The NBA promised everyone there would be a new look to the NBA In-Season Tournament (which begins Friday). The league was going to try to make things special.

There would be special jerseys — in the form of this year’s City Edition jerseys — and special courts to make the tournament feel bigger.

The special courts are here. And they certainly will be polarizing while they let you know these games are a bit different.

The NBA unveiled the courts they will use for the In-Season Tournament. The Magic will have a new court featuring their City Edition font and a dark grey parquet with a navy blue stripe down the middle.

As you can see, this is the model every team is using for their courts for these tournament games.

Reviews for the new court have not been good. Most of the criticism is lingering dislike for the team’s new City Edition jersey — that criticism is mostly about how the shade of blue they use is a bit too dark.

The only good thing anyone will likely say is that Orlando was long overdue to bring back the star for the A in their logo. That was always a nice touch. In a City Edition uniform set that has almost universally been panned, this call back to the Magic’s original logo and jersey set has been praised.

The NBA unveiled the courts they will use for the In-Season Tournament games. They are loud and bold. At least the star is back in the Orlando Magic’s regular rotation.

The Magic moved away from that during the jersey redesign in 2005 and the logo redesign in 2010. Generally Magic fans love anything that calls back to the team’s original jersey set and logo or the stars jerseys the team is currently wearing as a throwback — those have been universally praised (the Orlando Magic wear them again tonight against the Los Angeles Lakers).

It is almost a saving grace for the whole City Edition and court design.

Overall, it seems like everyone is a bit worried that the courts are a bit too loud — every court is completely painted with none of the hardwood coloring that is typical for a basketball court. Of note on that design too, the Magic’s court at the Amway Center will not be a parquet design (neither will the Boston Celtics’ design at TD Garden).

No one will fault the NBA for trying hard to make this tournament feel big. If there are complaints to be made, Zach Lowe of ESPN reports (linked in the previous sentence) that the league had to rush order a lot of the courts because the idea did not crystalize until July.

This has been an enterprise and an idea that has been difficult to latch onto throughout the league. Nobody really knows how serious anybody will take this tournament. The new courts and City Edition jerseys certainly will be carrying a lot of weight to make this feel bigger.

Only time will tell how big these games ultimately become — the Orlando Magic’s final In-Season Tournament game against the Boston Celtics already feels like a major game with its 2:30 p.m. start time on Black Friday.

It is bold. And nobody should knock a staid organization for trying something bold — again, according to Lowe that was the message from NBA commissioner Adam Silver. The league has acknowledged that it takes time to establish new traditions and this In-Season Tournament is going to take some time.

The league is indeed trying to make these games feel big. We will see just how serious the rest of the league will take it.

Orlando will open its In-Season Tournament schedule Nov. 14 in Brooklyn and Nov. 17 in Chicago. This court will make its debut Nov. 21 against Toronto and then again for that Nov. 24 game against Boston.

That may be the only time we see this court at all. So if you dislike it, at least the Magic will not play on it too much.