The Delaware Blue Coats are NBA G League Champions after defeating the Rio Grande Valley Vipers at the Texas team’s home court. ESPN carried the game.
Mac McClung, who earlier won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest, scored 30 points for the Philadelphia 76ers affiliate in the 114 to 110 victory, winning two games in the best-of-three series.
The team plays in the Chase Fieldhouse in Wilmington, a $25 million facility, and Buccini/Pollin Group project in the expanded Riverfront area. The complex is used year-round as a youth sports center
The G League wraps up its season shortly before the NBA playoffs.
It was the first G League championship for the team that has been around since 2007 and was once known as the Delaware 87ers. The names are derived from Delaware’s blue-clad troops in the Revolutionary War and the state becoming the first to sign the U.S. Constitution.
The team changed its logo to an image of the angry horse after the controversy over the Delaware Declaration of Independence signer Caesar Rodney who according to legend, rode on horseback to Philadelphia to sign the document. A statue of Rodney, who owned slaves, was removed from Wilmington’s Rodney Square and has remained in storage.
