Mighty Fighting Sea Dubs...Santa Cruz Warriors part 1

Ask a basketball fan who doesn't particularly care about uniforms what an iconic uniform looks like, and he'll probably point to the Celtics green the Lakers' gold or the Bulls red.  Ask a uniform fanatic, you'll probably get those three as well.  You'll also get a fourth option: The City.

courtesy warriorsrundown.blogspot.com

This post is about the Warriors.  No, not the Golden State Warriors.



In the D-League's infancy, it was largely an afterthought as far as the NBA's teams were concerned.  Nowadays, though, several NBA teams like the Spurs, Lakers, Celtics, and Knicks own D-League teams, and the Warriors joined in a few years ago when they bought the Dakota Wizards, relocating them to Santa Cruz and rechristening them the Warriors before last season.  Usually, this has the potential for a rather lame modification of the big club's primary logo or something of that ilk.  Not these guys.

Anyways, let's get down to business...with the City set as my muse, and Santa Cruz conveniently nicknamed Surf City, I put together a home and away set that I felt was faithful to its inspiration.  The bridge that is such a key part of the City jersey and the Warriors' current fare is rather irrelevant to Santa Cruz, but as it turns out, they have an alternate logo of a wave over a basketball.  The front circle is basically that without the ball seams.  On the back, replacing the cable car are three surfboards side by side...and in what might have been a bout of complexity addiction, each board has a motif from GSW history: the Northwestern stripe from the Run TMC shorts, the lightning bolt from the late 90s set, and the map and star of the 70s-mid 90s logo.  Instead of WARRIORS down each leg, the right leg reads SEA DUBS instead on the home shorts, and SANTA CRUZ on the roads.

The third is loosely based on the post-City uniforms of the 70s and 80s (much like the Sea Dubs' real life whites use a scrip based on the Run TMC set).  SANTA CRUZ graces the front, and while the front number is still inside a circle, instead of a wave I used a pair of surfboards, mimicking the California map of the 70s-80s GSW uniform.  On the back, the number is above a simpler board that acts as a nameplate.