The new Hawks logo is awful

The Hawks filed a claim for this logo with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The Hawks filed a claim for this logo with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

After the Hawks no-showed against the Cavs in the Eastern Conference finals they could have a new look with key cogs Paul Millsap and DeMarre Carroll headed for free agency. Anyone upset about that potential development can take solace in the fact that the team's new owners are spiffing up the team's image with a new logo for the new era of Hawks basketball.

And this new Hawks era will be represented by a flying basketball that has caught on fire for some reason.

Chris Creamer of sportslogos.net, which apparently is a thing, highlights a recent filing with the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Atlanta Hawks LP. According to the filing, the new Hawks logo will be that thing you see at the top of this page.

That is unfortunate because it is not a good logo and is, in fact, a terrible logo. Apparently the Hawks saw some dude bro with that thing tatted on his bicep and thought it would make a fine logo for a professional sports franchise.

Creamer includes a quote from Hawks CEO Steve Koonin indicating that the popular and cool “Pac” logo will be the primary logo “and we’ve got some big, secret stuff on the way.” Apparently the big, secret stuff is “a basketball with two wings one on the left and the other on the right with a flame on a shield located in the center of the basketball design” as the trademark filing describes the new logo.

If the only place we ever see this logo is a tiny mark on the waistband of those Christmas Day unis that were leaked then fine (though I could do without the lime green color).  NBA rules dictate that at least one of the logos must include a basketball, and so the Hawks decided a basketball with flames, wings and a shield would be cool.

If this new logo appears anywhere else other than waistband shorts then the new owners will have squandered some of the goodwill they’ve gained by not being the old owners, who at least never tried to unleash bad tattoo art on the public.