Who is the player on the NBA logo?
The dribbling silhouette is almost universally believed to be Jerry West, drawn from a 1960s photo — even though the league has never officially confirmed it.
The famous silhouette
The NBA logo is a red, white and blue rectangle with a white silhouette of a basketball player dribbling, mid-stride, to his right. It's one of the most recognisable marks in all of sport, stitched onto every jersey and stamped across the league's branding. And for decades one question has followed it: who is that player?
The answer everyone believes
The figure is almost universally understood to be Jerry West, the Los Angeles Lakers guard and Hall of Famer. The logo was designed by Alan Siegel around 1969, and Siegel has said he based the silhouette on a photograph of West in action. His elegant, upright dribbling form made a clean, dynamic outline — perfect for a logo meant to feel timeless.
Why it was never made official
Curiously, the NBA has never formally confirmed that the logo is Jerry West. The league has generally preferred to keep the silhouette a symbol of the game rather than a tribute to one man, and West himself was known to feel uncomfortable about being the face of it. So the most famous player-identification in sports remains, officially, an open question — even as virtually everyone treats the answer as settled.
The debate it still sparks
Because it's never been confirmed, the logo occasionally reignites debate — including calls over the years to update it to honour a modern great. Any change would be significant precisely because the current mark is so iconic. For now, the dribbling silhouette endures, carrying with it one of basketball's favourite pieces of trivia: the league's symbol is a player it has never officially named.