Alright, here are the Sea Lions. Brace yourselves.

When owner Valiant LeRay announced he would be giving the team a total rebrand, it garnered - well, it garnered backlash from the few people who both a) followed dashball and b) cared what its players were wearing. Even so, the team had undeniably the biggest brand in the sport, winning the first two championships, appearing in four out of six Finals, and having yet to miss the playoffs at all. Fortunately for people like us, LeRay recognized this, explaining, "The Sea Lions are big, which I get, and they've built up a great brand over the last six years. We've been playing in the twenty-first century, but we haven't really been looking like we are. I wanted to bring us into 2023 and hopefully into the future while staying true to the past."


So yeah, at first glance, it's a pretty significant departure, what with two purples and all. The darker one is the same they've always used, though, and it remains the single largest thing tying this brand to the previous look. The sea lion remains as the primary, but gets an upgrade from sitting up on a pier or something to swimming in the sea (which, as you probably guessed, is where sea lions live). Added bonus: it still keeps a letterform, this time as a C for California. They also still have a roundel logo and a straight letter logo, though both look somewhat different than they did before. The wordmark is in the same font that got limited usage in the last identity; LeRay liked it, so he kept it around and elevated it to primary status.


The jerseys have an asymmetrical split look, which LeRay admitted was pretty arbitrary, even after the explanation that it was based on the shading in the primary logo. Either way, it does show off the double purple pretty well. The shorts have five tapering stripes that are meant to represent whiskers, and they also create a cool gradient effect from a distance without actually being one. LeRay also kept a version of the old purple alternate around, now with the new roundel and no white. The number and NOB font also get to stick around.


The court carries over the asymmetrical pattern, including two different-colored end zones, but keeps the C shape between the 3- and 5-point lines.

Well, there you have it - what I'd consider to be the NDL's first full rebrand. I'm excited to hear what you all think!

Thanks! I'm definitely happier with the C-lion than I was with the S version, so I'm glad you like it too. If there's one thing I know for sure in this series, though, it's that California will eventually wear purple and cream again in some capacity; it just may not be for the next few years. That said, if the Lions come out and win 15 games next year, this is gonna be a really bad look for everyone involved.

As they had been for the past few years, most of the eyes on the league were focused on the two-time defending champion Texas Redbacks. Texas were heavy favorites to three-peat, and started the season looking like it. In just their fourth game, though, B/K Ares Preciado tore his ACL trying to make a save and would be out for the season. They would find his replacement in second-round pick Phil Carey, who was drafted as a B/ZB but switched to keeper and far outplayed W/K Max Schenk (who Texas drafted in the same round). Carey was no Red Planet (Ares? Mars? Get it?), but he plugged the gap adequately. The Redbacks got excellent play as usual from W/C Elide Amigazzi and B/K Semarias Garcia, got a career year from F/ZB Omaro Rubio, and benefited from a historically weak division (more on that later), but for the first time in four seasons, failed to grab the top seed.

That spot instead went to the new-look California Sea Lions. It seemed like half the starting lineup was having a breakout year, including B/ZB Kenton Snowberger, W/ZB Jay Moth, B/C Jasper Jansen, and especially B/ZB Dewitt Golf, who had been a role player with the Lions for a few years but suddenly turned into a top-tier player almost overnight. B/ZB Joel Moth, who missed a few weeks with a broken finger, still made a big impact as well. The Sea Lions had 7 players with over 30 points contributed per game, which led them to a 46-4 record, even in a West Division that once again sent three teams to the playoffs.

Nearly everyone expected the Sawyers to be back, but not many people expected the Palms to be in the mix. Not only were they in the mix, but they were one of only three teams to beat California, as well as the only team to beat them twice and the only team to beat them in San Jose. After trading F/K Ray Thomas and losing W/ZB Bruce Pointe to an ankle injury, Phoenix seemed to be heading for a tank season, but nobody told the players, who all seemed to be playing above their paygrade. The team lacks a real star, which can be a bad thing at times, but has also been beneficial, as they’ve been able to hurt opposing teams from pretty much anywhere. Eventually, the Palms found themselves battling with the Sawyers for the 4 seed and home court in the inevitable quarterfinal series between the two. With four of the first five matchups between these teams having gone to the road team, Phoenix went into KeyArena for their second-to-last game and squeaked out a six-point win to clinch the higher seed.

You might have read that last paragraph and thought that Ray Thomas was the problem. There was probably some negative chemistry in Phoenix, but Thomas certainly didn’t hurt his new team, as he would win his second MVP and fourth Defensive Player of the Year award in his first year in Philly. With Thomas sharing duties with B/K LaVarius McCargo, many teams would avoid the goal entirely for long stretches of time, which is how Thomas ended up with stats such as 4.3 goals allowed per game and 11.6 points against per game. As a team, the Row only allowed 103.8 points per game, second-best in NDL history behind only the undefeated 2021 Redbacks. They were in a battle with those same Redbacks for the 2 seed, and managed to lock it up in the second-to-last game of the season against the Fugitives.

Speaking of the Fugitives, I told you we’d get back to the Central. After notching 21 wins in their first season, there were high expectations for Trashville, but they failed to live up to them. After B/ZB Alvin Milling left for Orlando, their defense, which had held them in many close games last year, just wasn’t as good, and their offense couldn’t keep up. Chicago also had a down year due to little depth behind B/ZB Ed Maxwell, W/K Nico Boyer, and F/C Michel Blanchard, dropping from 23 wins to 19. Nobody, however, had as down a year as the Colorado Pinnacles. Their fourth-overall pick, W/C Daniel Oman, and F/K Wayne Carey fell to season-ending injuries in training camp and lost the entire year, and before the first week of the season was over, W/ZBs Perham Jahanpour and Henry Morrow had joined them. They got off on rocky footing (pun absolutely intended) and stayed there, setting an unbreakable record for fewest wins in a season, losing all 50 games.

Anyway, if that got you down, let’s talk about the feel-good story of 2023: the Orlando Orbits. After going 2-48 last season, they got busy over the offseason, picking up Alvin Milling from Nashville and W/ZB Zebedeo Perilla from Seattle. Despite the second-worst scoring offense in the league, they were able to ride a top-5 defense to a playoff berth thanks to a down year in the rest of their division. With New York suffering from injuries throughout the season and Toronto not playing up to their potential, the Orbits climbed to 25-25 and the sixth seed. Interestingly, they knew they were in the 6 spot for nearly three weeks at the end of the season and didn’t really have anything to play for, so they got a lot of time to try things out for the postseason, and they’ll need it going up against the two-time reigning champs.

Yeah, the new playoff format might've been buried in an offseason post somewhere. To clarify, yes, the top two seeds get a bye for the first round while the 3-6 seeds play best-of-3 series. The postseason advances as before, with the 1 seed playing the lowest remaining seed in the second round.

The Redbacks aren't the one seed, but they're not exactly underdogs either; a 42-8 record is still an improvement over last season's 40-10 (which did earn them the top seed). This might only make you feel worse, but Orlando isn't really being given a chance by anyone; the real trouble will more likely be having to go on the road against a talented Philadelphia or California team.

The Pinnacles really did hit rock bottom (pun once again intended), and I won't reveal their fate just yet, but there are a lot of whispers around the league, and none of them are good. 0-50 is almost impossibly bad, but that's what happens when nearly all of your team gets injured at the beginning of the season.

Last edited by ItDoesntMatter (1/11/2020 4:16 pm)

I'm not buying the hype. Orlando got lucky and there's no reason to panic. Texas vs Philly will be a real battle though. Predicting it goes down to the final minute to decide the series.