Speaking of the Knicks, seriously: what's a knickerbocker? Well, if you've ever heard the word "knickers," that's a clue. Per NBA.com, Dutch settlers in New York commonly wore knickerbocker pants, and as soon as author Washington Irving popularized the name with his 1809 book A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty under the humorous pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker, the word stuck. In the late 19th century it became en vogue in New York to cite Dutch ancestry, and the most common representation of such lineage was Father Knickerbocker, with a cotton wig, trifold hat, and yes, knickers. When the Knicks were founded in 1964 they adopted this historic emblem and gave him the Knick's iconic color scheme: blue, orange, and white.
Other examples are less complicated, but interesting, nonetheless, as outlined on Stadium Talk. The Nugget's current logo, complete with a pickaxe and mountain, hearkens back to the Denver gold rush. The Los Angeles Clippers, upon being changed from the Buffalo Braves, decided on a name and logo to describe swift-moving wind moving though the sails of clipper ships that used to pass through San Diego Bay. The Celtics logo is basically an Irish stereotype pointing to Boston's connection with Irish-Americans, while the newly-minted Pelicans kept New Orlean's famed fleur de lis and adopted the region's pelican as symbol of determination, doggedness, and a hunter's instinct.
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