For the NBA fan, August and September are pretty much interminable: two months that just drag and drag and drag because absolutely nothing is happening. For these two months, the NBA just seemingly shuts down. Sure, there's a minor free agent signing or two and they throw us a bone by releasing the next season's schedule this month (can't wait, by the way!) but it's still super slow. So once again, I'm casting about for filler for my blog to make myself feel like I'm a credible blogger. Last year, I devoted five posts to ranking the NBA teams' mascots from 30 to 1. This year, I'm ranking team names, but in three parts, not five.
When I first moved to this country at the age of 11 in 1979, I was absolutely fascinated by American sports names. In England, where football is the one major sport (not that football; real football), team names are pretty dull. There are a lot of "United"s, "City"s and just some town or cities with no name other than the place name. Every so often you'd find a Rovers or a Rangers or an Albion. Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers were really really cool just because they were different but that's about as exotic as it got.
Naturally, when I knew we were moving to the United States, I started checking out the football situation across the pond to see which team I might become a fan of. We were moving to Connecticut so naturally I picked the Hartford Bicentennials and started thinking about my dad and I being able to go to some games (I didn't realize the Bicentennials had moved to Oakland in 1978; current information was only so available back then). But in looking into teams over in this country, I found no "United"s or "City"s. We knew about the New York Cosmos in England because they were pretty much world famous at that point. The rest of the names were just amazing: Chicago Sting, San Jose Earthquakes, Seattle Sounders and on and on.
Why were teams named these things? Stephen Merchant's character Stuart Pritchard summed it up pretty well in the Long Beach episode of the absolutely hilarious HBO series Hello Ladies.
"Every fucking American sports team's just a bloody city and some arbitrary animal stuck together. Ooh, look at me, I'm a fan of the Chicago Squids. What does it even mean?"
Good question, Pritch! As I grew older and became an American sports fan (baseball and football first, then hockey, then basketball, then not so much baseball and hockey), I started to understand that some team names were indeed just a city name and an arbitrary animal (or whatever else) stuck together. Others however, have some real meaning and some are actually really really cool. And yes, some of these are actually animals.
So anyway, without further preamble, here are my bottom ten team names in the NBA. You'll have to wait a few days on the next ten, then a few more after that for the top ten. Here goes!
Category One: Stupidest Team Name Ever
Some names just don't work at all because they are just stupid.
30. Toronto Raptors
The genesis of the Raptors' name, which is hands down the worst in the NBA and possibly the worst name in the history of sports names, is as plain and as simple as the folks in Toronto swiping it from the Jurassic Park movie, which was the biggest box office hit the year prior to the franchise's name being announced. There are two primary reasons why the Raptors name is so bad. First, there is absolutely no relevance to the city of Toronto whatsoever. I mean not even millions of years ago; velociraptors have only been found in Mongolia to date. Secondly, as a general rule, don't name your team after a hit action movie. I realize the special effects in that movie were absolutely the bomb in 1993, but they do the same things and better in commercials these days. What if the team had been founded after the transformers movie was released? Think about it. The city of Toronto had a team called the Huskies in the old BAA. Go back to that one, please!
Category Two: Once Relevant But Now Just Misguided
I love relevant nicknames. But sometimes, franchises relocate and they just need to go ahead and bite the bullet and change their names. Otherwise there's a chance of looking pretty dumb in the future.
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| Bourbon Street, New Orleans, September 2012 |
29. Utah Jazz
I love the Jazz uniforms, logo and name. Absolutely love them all! I think the analogy of five players improvising on the basketball court around a series of set plays is the perfect reflection of Jazz musicians improvising around a rhythm structure and I love it as a basketball team name. I think it's inventive and original. In fact, I love almost everything about the Jazz concept as a basketball team except one thing: the team is in Utah! The name was perfect in New Orleans where the team started. It just ain't in Utah and there's no two ways about it. Change the name, folks, and feel lucky that the Raptors exist.
28. Los Angeles Lakers
When I look at a map of the city of Los Angeles, I see a few lakes. And I mean a few: four or five maybe. The biggest lake to me seems to be Silver Lake. Zooming out on Google Maps doesn't help; I still don't see a ton of lakes. What gives? Well, the Lakers started life in Minneapolis. When I switch to a map of Minneapolis, I see a lot of lakes and they are big relative to the total city area. When I zoom out (again, on Google Maps), I see a ton more. The Lakers of course were named after Minnesota's state nickname "Land of 1,000 Lakes". That name works in Minnesota, like really well. Not so much in L.A. So I know nobody really wants to hear this, but the Lakers need to change their name. Despite all the history and championships, the name sucks. Do the right thing!
27. Los Angeles Clippers
The Los Angeles Clippers started life in the NBA in 1970 as the Buffalo Braves. In 1978, they moved to San Diego and (smartly) changed their nickname to the Clippers, after the clipper ships common in San Diego's harbor. Great choice. Location specific and unique. Six years later they moved to Los Angeles to become (until recently) the red-headed stepchild to the Lakers. Los Angeles is still on the coast of California, right? So we can just keep the name, right? Well maybe not. Although they did. The port of Los Angeles is not famous for clipper ships. More like cargo ships. Oh well, at least their bad name will always be better than the Lakers' bad name.
26. Memphis Grizzlies
The Grizzlies franchise was founded in Vancouver in 1995 and remained there until 2001 when they moved to Memphis. In 2008, the United States Geology Survey published the results of a six year study called the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear project which studied the historic and current range of the grizzly bear. Their published study includes the above map. Vancouver is located in the Canadian Province of British Columbia (the area above the upper left of the United States for those of you challenged when it comes to Canadian geography); notice the current grizzly bear territory almost completely covers British Columbia. Now look at Tennessee, which is entirely white. The Grizzlies missed an opportunity to change their names when they moved, although it's not too late. Just don't go back to the Tams. The Grizzlies are the best of the four no longer relevant team names because I'd be afraid meeting a grizzly bear. I'm not afraid of lakes, jazz or clipper ships.
Category Three: Prey
Animal based team names are supposed to instill a certain amount of fear in opponents. In other sports, team names such as the Bears, Tigers, Lions and Sharks do the trick for me. This one doesn't.
25. Milwaukee Bucks
The Milwaukee Bucks name (like some other NBA team nicknames) was selected based on an open entry contest when the team joined the NBA in 1968. The Bucks name, suggested by R.D. Trebilcox of Whitefish Bay won the hearts of the folks deciding which name would be adopted by the team because it represented the fish and game indigenous to the state of Wisconsin. Here's my problem. While I don't want to be staring down a full grown male deer (on my way to work one day I saw one running through Washington Circle en route to who knows where down K Street), bucks are not ferocious hunters. In fact, they are pretty much hunted by everything that might be appropriate as an NBA team nickname. Not ferocious; not good.
Category Four: Just Sort of Boring
There are a lot of NBA franchises with team names which are completely irrelevant to their city. Some of these work and some don't. Some are just boring and generic and could just as well be any team name in any state or city. Despite their mediocrity, these teams finish ahead of really bad names and once relevant names because they just don't suck as much as those other names.
24. Brooklyn Nets
So the name of this franchise refers to the string that hangs below the rim that the basketball goes through when a team scores a bucket. It's a piece of sports equipment and is almost that exciting. The team may as well be names the rims, the backboards, the balls or the courts. None of those is substantially worse than Nets. According to Julius Erving's autobiography (some very light post new year reading for me this year), the name was chosen as much because it rhymed with the Mets and Jets as any other reason. Picking names because they rhyme with other local teams doesn't cut it as a strategy for me. It's boring!
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| Ummm…yeah. Fearsome! |
23. Cleveland Cavaliers
Just like the Milwaukee Bucks, the Cleveland Cavaliers let the public have a hand in picking their team name. This is always a risky proposition, and by no means the last time we will see this strategy for naming a franchise in this three part analysis. In Cleveland's case, the local newspaper, the Plain-Dealer, held a contest to name the newly awarded basketball franchise. Obviously Cavaliers won. Contest winner Jerry Tomko summed his suggestion for the nickname up as "(Cavaliers) represent a group of daring, fearless men, whose life's pact was never surrender, no matter what the odds." Much like the group in the photo above, I imagine. Cavaliers isn't a bad name I guess. It's just non-specific and a little blah. Therefore it finishes in the bottom half of the boring group because well, I just don't like the Cavs and never will.
22. Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors started out in Philadelphia in 1946 (the first year the NBA operated) and moved to San Francisco in 1962 but based on their name, they could have come from anywhere it's just so non-specific. Originally, the Warriors nickname was accompanied by a logo featuring a native American attired in shorts only with a feather in his hair dribbling a basketball. The Warriors have mercifully moved away from this imagery, although the San Francisco Warriors logo did feature a headdress. The latest warrior depiction from the franchise was some sort of muscled futuristic blue guy but the team killed that a couple of years ago and adopted imagery that reflects their city, not their nickname. I guess Warriors is a little fearsome so they finish in the top half of the boring category.
21. Atlanta Hawks
Like the Warriors, the Hawks started out life as a native American moniker. The team started their NBA life in the league's inaugural season as the Tri-Cities Blackhawks. The Tri-Cities in this case were Moline and Rock Island, Illinois and Davenport, Iowa. The Blackhawks were named (as were the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks) after the Sac native American tribe leader Black Hawk (1767-1838). The Sac moved around before being constrained to any one spot by the United States government but they always stayed around the Great Lakes area. In 1951 the franchise shortened their name when they moved to Milwaukee to just simply Hawks. As a team name, it's not bad. Hawks are predators and the team deserves some props for renaming the team, although the Blackhawk name would have still worked in Milwaukee. Nonetheless, there's a boring factor and Atlanta finishes out my bottom ten.
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