The NBA aims to highlight the association’s Statement Edition uniforms with this year’s Emirates NBA Cup court designs. Artist Victor Solomon made it happen, creating a system of design personalized by all 30 NBA teams for the brand-new courts fans will see across group play and the quarterfinals of the in-season tournament that begins Nov. 12.

The fully painted courts come with a league-wide theme of three concentric circles radiating from center court in tonal hues of a team’s core color, but it’s the artistic “wallpaper” that covers the entirety of the court in a 30% opacity—a nod to the NBA’s 30 teams—that allowed each team their own take on the design, whether a logo, wordmark, cityscape or unique element that ties to the city, such as a bed of roses in Portland or a forest for Minnesota.

“We were urging team to go with the vibrancy, the boldness of these things, the statement we’re meant to be making,” Solomon tells me. “We were encouraging people to go even further.”

Solomon says that what he found cool about the process was how each team’s creative group really brought in a design language that would resonate with a local fan, giving each court a truly personal touch. “We were building the system, setting the foundation,” Solomon says, “getting the team involved to put their cherry on top.”

Christopher Arena, the NBA’s head of on-court and brand partnerships, tells me that they learned from last season’s court designs that having special-edition courts really helped differentiate the NBA Cup event. This year was about doubling-down on that concept.

That comes with a focus on the Statement Edition uniform. Last season the courts coupled with the City Edition uniforms, which did create dynamic, non-traditional colors. Arena says it also meant there were a lot of stories being told at one time. Arena says that by definition the Statement Edition uniform is meant to take on the player’s mindset, familiar to the team and fans through color and design, but pushed a little. The league’s Association Edition uniform is white, something that ties all 30 teams together (the road team will wear the white-based Association Edition when playing the NBA Cup), while the Icon Edition is a traditional team color uniform and the City Edition is a hyper-local design that often pushes boundaries.

Using the Statement Edition uniform as the key contrast to the floor—knowing the away team is wearing white helps with the process—gave designers a solid starting point. “The court provides the maximum contrast with the players,” Arena says. “We are trying to make a statement, bring out this competitiveness.”

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It’s those details that helped craft the design process, Solomon says, a process that starts with creating a system for all 30 courts. Arena and Solomon designed the foundation for each team, with the colors they thought worked well for the contrast, the apron color, the wordmarks on the baseline and a new side apron. The NBA Cup trophy—also designed by Solomon—serves as the center court logo for every court and then the three concentric circles meant to symbolize the three stages of the tournament—group play, quarterfinals and then the semifinals and championship held in Las Vegas.

From there, the teams took ownership of the 30% opacity wallpapers. Following a summit with all 30 creative directors in the league, each individual market headed out on their own to “create what their team and fan base would be most excited by,” Solomon says. “I don’t think we had to pull anyone back.”

Arena credits Solomon for really unlocking a design that allowed the team to have its own say beyond the runway and colors available last year, something that gave teams a bit more agency in the process while remaining within a unified structure that let fans know this was an NBA Cup court design.

Using fully painted courts really fit with the effort to give the design its own look. Each of the new courts, a hard maple wood manufactured by Robbins, features Bona paints and finishes applied by Praters. Arena says that many of the core courts around the league feature wood, with painted lanes, aprons and center logos. Of course, additional staining elements and graphics play a part too. The City Edition courts push the boundaries with more glazing, staining and aggressive colors. The NBA Cup courts, then, fit with that Statement Edition mindset of going fully painted.

“Now fans can identify what uniforms are being worn, what games are being played,” Arena says. “We don’t just have white ice and green grass, we have the ability to morph based on our uniforms.” Instead of having all three courts wood, glazed or painted, there’s an order that includes each style.

“The stain technique is beautiful, but it is done,” Solomon says. “Can we make it so the NBA Cup courts are all-over paint as a philosophy and build on top of that?” Building that philosophy makes a new statement.