With the Detroit Pistons moving downtown, the timing was right for a new look.

With a nod to the team’s Bad Boys era, a new logo was unveiled Tuesday afternoon at Campus Martius in the center of downtown.

“We started talking about this literally a year or so ago, but then once things started getting much more solidified with the move downtown, we knew that the time was right,” said Charlie Metzger, Palace Sports & Entertainment chief marketing and communications officer.

The news comes when all secrecy would have evaporated later when the logo would have been revealed at the NBA draft lottery on national TV where the Pistons had the 12th best odds out of 14 slots of landing the top pick for the June draft.

It’s similar to the franchise's primary logo from 1979-96, the same artwork associated with the Bad Boys teams that won NBA titles in 1989 and 1990.

Modified groove lines are featured with a font more consistent with what’s found on the players’ jerseys. Gray outside chrome completes the new look and is representative of the city’s automobile heritage.

Pistons center Andre Drummond and ex-Piston Rick Mahorn were on hand for the short event. Both gave thumbs up.

“It’s a little bit of our new and a little bit of our city’s old,” Drummond said. “It’s got a little bit of new school with an old school feel to it. It’s a dope logo and I’m really excited to see how it looks on the floor and on our jerseys, too.”

Mahorn appreciated the nod to the franchise’s heyday with the Bad Boys. That was his first thought when he saw the logo.

“I thought it was a good throwback,” Mahorn said. “You’re moving downtown to Detroit. A lot of memories are in that kind of logo. I like it.”

The Pistons last revamped their logo in 2005, going from the fiery horse over exhaust pipes to their current appearance.

The change comes with the franchise preparing to leave the Palace to move to downtown Detroit and play in the under-construction Little Caesars Arena starting next season.

Metzger said the announcement is the first of many involving the franchise’s look in the coming months.

Merchandise with the new logo can be found at www.pistonslr.com.

Contact Vince Ellis at vellis@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @vincent_ellis56.

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