The Wizards are currently playing the Hawks in the NBA’s Eastern Conference semifinals in an unusual mid-May appearance for a franchise that has won but one single NBA championship (1977-78). Resplendent in their bold red, white and blue uniforms, the Wizards are seeking to join their illustrious ancestors in immortality, joined across the decades by their star-spangled aesthetics.

The Wizards, in a very rare move, changed their primary logo a few weeks ago. In-season logo changes almost never happen — imagine the licensed merchandise that immediately becomes obsolete, stakeholders such as media outlets and scoreboard technicians who have to implement the new logo without the benefit of a running start.

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The Wizards’ new logo is really a modified version of what was previously a secondary team logo.

The team’s press release describing the change stated that:

This franchise has seen a multitude of visual identities over the years since their inaugural season as the Chicago Packers in 1961-62. Named in honor of Chicago’s meat-packing industry, the Packers — the first modern expansion franchise in NBA history — transformed themselves into the Chicago Zephyrs after just one season.

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Regardless of their name, the Chicago franchise was a flop, going 43-117 despite having back-to-back Rookies of the Year Walt Bellamy and Terry Dischinger in 1961-62 and 1962-63, respectively. Plagued by disappointing attendance, the Zephyrs looked eastward toward a brighter future. On March 14, 1963, the Zephyrs announced that they were moving to “another city,” citing “a lack of proper playing facilities” for their failure in the Windy City. Eight days later, the team officially identified Baltimore as their new home.

The Zephyrs were reborn as “Bullets” on June 4, 1963, in honor of Baltimore’s previous NBA entry, a team that folded in 1954. The new Baltimore Bullets employed a sleek logo and orange and blue uniforms. This look accompanied the team through the end of the 1960s, an era that saw the team transformed into a championship contender.

In 1969, the Bullets abandoned their old logo in favor of something far more contemporary. The emblem featured a pair of hands — cleverly forming the two lowercase “l’s” in “bullets” — tossing a basketball. This look would move with the team to suburban Landover, Maryland, and would represent the team until 1997. Interestingly, this logo was used in conjunction with three different location names — the Baltimore, Capital, and Washington Bullets.

The Bullets’ uniforms took a sharp turn toward what the Baltimore Sun described as “ultra-mod” in 1971. The team wore these uniforms for two seasons. Devoid of traditional graphics and very representative of their era, they were destined to enjoy a short shelf life.

The Bullets’ next set of uniforms were introduced in 1973-74. The team — now known as the Capital Bullets — adopted a set of star-spangled uniforms that continues to define the look of the franchise some four decades later. This look is associated with the only NBA championship in team history, in 1977-78. An aesthetic that seemed perfectly suited to the Bicentennial era, the stars-and-stripes look was finally phased out after the 1986-87 season.

The Bullets streamlined things in 1987-88, retaining the “shooting hoops" wordmark — now modified to include a cap “B” in “Bullets” — with red uniforms on the road.

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In 1997, the team was planning a move to a new downtown arena in the District of Columbia. This move precipitated a name change. Team owner Abe Pollin, reacting to an epidemic of gun violence in the nation’s capital and elsewhere, said that the name “Bullets” had too many negative connotations.

“Bullets connote killing, violence, death,” Pollin said. “Our slogan used to be, ‘faster than a speeding bullet.’ That is no longer appropriate.”

The Washington Bullets thus became the Washington Wizards, a nickname that won out over Dragons, Express, Sea Dogs, and Stallions. A new logo was introduced in May 1997, featuring an abstract wizard figure rendered in a palette of muted slate blue, bronze, and black. The colors were amended a decade later — gold was substituted for bronze — and the wizard himself was sent packing with this latest change.

The original wizard logo was created by Tom O’Grady, then the NBA’s creative director. O’Grady says that his personal take on the logo was that, in retrospect, it represented “a refreshing and somewhat revolutionary change for the NBA to find a new visual approach to team branding.”

He was inspired by the Roman god of the sea, Neptune, saying that “in some ways the beard, the trident (wand), elderly/wise person fit. I found some very strong iconography for those Atlantis-type Neptune characters. And the symbols were often very graphic. That convinced me to try to create a more sleek, athletic, and abstract Wizards symbol with visual cues built into the overall design.”

Along the way, the team adopted a DC-centric red, white, and blue color scheme in 2011, as well as uniforms that harkened back to those worn during the 1970s and early 80s. Lowercase letterforms were back, in addition to those bold bands of color.

If the Wizards are still standing a month from now, comparisons will inevitably be made between this team and their championship predecessors. Those comparisons will focus on individual players, of course — Elvin Hayes, John Wall, Wes Unseld, and Paul Pierce — but the uniforms that connect these players will also get a fresh look.