What About Portland?

I used to hate the NBA All-Star Game. Maybe hate's a strong word. But in years past I really had no use whatsoever for the mid-season exhibition basketball game where most of the players that I love to hate showboat while nobody (and I mean nobody) plays defense. Even when Gilbert Arenas, Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler were making appearances in the game over a four year span about a decade ago, I never really tuned in for very long.

Then last year everything changed. I snagged some tickets to the big events on All-Star Weekend in New York City and saw the true value of the experience. From the game itself on Sunday to All-Star Saturday night to practices to press conferences to autograph hunting all over the city, it was a non-stop weekend of NBA superstar immersion. And it was quite honestly pretty fantastic. I never could have imagined such a transformation in my attitude about something based on a frigid long weekend in America's best city (sorry, D.C. but it's true!).

Washington last hosted the All-Star Game in 2001, my first year as a Wizards season ticket holder. I didn't do much at all that weekend basketball-wise except attend the Rising Stars Challenge on Saturday afternoon. I bought a $10 (yes, you read that right) ticket at the box office and spent a couple of hours watching the rooks and sophs go back and forth while sitting one row closer to the court than now-majority owner Ted Leonsis (Ted was in his box; I was in the last row in the 100 level at what was then MCI Center in front of his box).

That year I was actually offered tickets to the All-Star Game. I think the deal from the Wizards was that if I bought 100 upper deck tickets for a regular season game and donated them to charity, they'd get me some 400 level seats for the All-Star Game. I passed, not having a spare $1,000 or more kicking around for such an indulgence at that time in my life. But after last year's All-Star experience, I started to wonder if D.C. was due for another All-Star weekend. I mean in the past 16 years since I've been a season ticket holder, both Houston and New Orleans have had the game twice. Why can't Washington get another shot? Aren't we due?

Me and Earl Monroe hanging out at All-Star Weekend 2015.

So logically, the answer to that question is NO! There are 30 teams in the league now so theoretically every team should get to host the All-Star Game once every three decades. But that's clearly not the way it works for Houston or New Orleans, so why can't Washington be an exception too? The Wizards / Bullets have hosted All-Star Weekend a total of three times in the 65 (including this year) year history of the event: 1969 (in Baltimore), 1980 (at the Caps Center in Landover, MD) and 2001 at our current arena on F Street. Maybe if the NBA waits the same 21 years between games like they did last time, maybe we get the game back here in 2022. Maybe.

Probably not. As it turns out, there are far more cities that are "due" than Washington is. In fact, it ain't even close. Boston holds the longest current All-Star Game-less streak at 52 years, including this year; 53 if you consider they aren't hosting it next year (Charlotte, NC is). Boston was home to the first and second ever NBA All-Star Games and hosted the event four of the first 14 years it was played (remember the league was a lot smaller back then). But they haven't played it in beantown again since 1964 when the league had a total of nine teams. That's a long time.

Other cities have never hosted the game at all. Oklahoma City which has been the home of the Thunder for nine years (including this one) has not yet been granted an All-Star Game. Nor has Sacramento, which has been the home of the Kings since 1985. But while the game may never have been played in those two cities before, the franchises that became the Oklahoma City Thunder and Sacramento Kings have hosted. The Thunder had the event in 1974 and 1987 as the Seattle SuperSonics and the Kings hosted All-Star Weekend in 1956 and 1966 as the Rochester and Cincinnati Royals respectively. Neither franchise has waited as long as the Celtics in Boston, although Sacto comes close.

Besides OKC and Sacramento, there are two other cities that have also never had the All-Star Game. One of these, Memphis, is a relative newcomer to the NBA, moving from Vancouver in 2001, although it seems like the Grizzlies, whose name worked way better in Vancouver, have been in that city forever. So while I feel for the Memphians who crave this event at the FedEx Forum, if I were running the show I'd put both Boston and Sacramento ahead of them. Yes, I'd put OKC at the back of the line here.

And then there's Portland. The Trail Blazers entered the NBA in 1970, 45 seasons ago, at a time when there were only 17 teams in the league. They've been in the same city under the same name for their entire history and as yet have never been awarded an All-Star Game. Since Portland entered the league, and including this year, the All-Star Game has been held in 28 different cities or metropolitan areas. Seven cities have had the game twice; three have been hosts three times; and Los Angeles (if you include Inglewood as Los Angeles) has had it four times. The game has been played in five football stadiums over that period, one city that no longer has a franchise (San Diego) and what that has never had a team located there (Las Vegas). But Portland's never had it. Not even once.

Apparently the city has put in an application to host the game in 2017 or 2018 but the NBA is concerned about the number of hotel rooms in town. It seems to me that the league could find it in it's heart to let a franchise which has been in the same place for almost 50 years have the event once, even if it means a lot of staying in the suburbs or elsewhere. There's one thing for sure: Portland's due!

Large scale graphics of jerseys at Barclays Center 2015: John Wall (woo hoo!!!) and LeBron James (BOOO!!!!!!)

NBA Logo Rank, Part 1

It's August 1, the first day of the slowest NBA month of the year. Admittedly, I could consider September the slowest but at least we are getting really close to training camp in September. Maybe it's a tie. Anyway, die hard fans who live off NBA news get no satisfaction in August other the release of next season's schedule and no satisfaction in September other than it's closer to October. So to kill the boredom each of the last two years, I've ranked all the NBA mascots (2013) and all the NBA team names (2014). This year, it's time to take on each team's logo and rank them 1 to 30 (or really 30 to 1 would be more accurate).

Unlike team names which rarely change, especially in today's era of non-relocation, and team mascots which seldom change (although I did have to re-rank mascots last year and I will again this year), team logos are seemingly constantly in flux. At least for most teams anyway. Whether it's a small tweak, the introduction or change of a secondary logo or a wholesale re-design, it seems like these days there are at least a handful of franchises which are introducing new branding each offseason. Because of that, this rank may be a yearly moving target.

Generally speaking, I love sports teams logos. Growing up in England, I found football (soccer) teams' emblems rather dull. They were mostly centered around some sort of heraldry-like theme in a badge type format. They strike me as almost like the equivalent of college seals over here in the United States: stately, dignified, tradition-filled, venerable, sometimes sporting a saying, boring and NO FUN! Logos of American sports teams are not no fun; in fact, to a kid moving to this country at the age of 11, they were a breath of fresh air, especially considering the abundance of cartoon like logos around in the 1970s. No way we would see the smiling Baltimore Oriole or the swinging for the fences San Diego Padre or the old Milwaukee Buck twirling a basketball on his hoof in the UK.

Cartoon logos seem to have been a trend in the 1970s and I think there are trends today. There have been a number of (mostly unsuccessful) franchises recently who have deliberately changed their branding to harken back 20, 30 or 40 years ago when NBA times were happier in their cities. A few years ago, the Golden State Warriors changed their loges and uniforms to evoke their old "The City" uniforms. In 2010, my beloved Washington Wizards changed their color scheme, logos and uniforms to re-invent the old Washington Bullets teams of the late '70s. Last year, the Atlanta Hawks brought back the Pac Man logo. We'll get to all that.

The other fad that seems to be happening in the NBA is franchises taking existing circular logos and adding a ring around them with the team name. I'm not necessarily a fan of these types of logos but the Brooklyn Nets, Philadelphia 76ers, Washington Wizards, Toronto Raptors, Milwaukee Bucks and Atlanta Hawks have all added this type of logo to their branding in the last half decade or so. But enough chatter…let's get to the good stuff. First up, the Los Angeles Clippers.

30. Los Angeles Clippers

Last summer, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer bought the Clippers from the exiled Donald Sterling for a cool $2 billion (yes, that's with a B). Apparently, Ballmer didn't want to waste any time carrying around the Clippers 30 year old logo and so he set about getting someone to re-brand the team in record fashion, taking just under a year before rolling out a new set of logos and some new unis to match.

The result? You're looking at it above. Congratulations, Mr. Ballmer you now have absolutely, hands down the worst logos in the NBA. I mean it's not even close and you can probably already see the less than impressive Oklahoma City Thunder logos awaiting you below. Now I admit, the previous Clippers logo was pretty poor and was really just sort of an adaptation of the Lakers' not much better logo. But these things above? Did you actually pay money for someone to design these? You would have gotten a far superior product by opening up a public competition and offering a couple of sets of Clippers season tickets as a prize. Heck, you might have even done much better with like a $500 cash prize and some credit for a job well done.

Some people have pointed out that the primary logo (on the left above) is pretty much just the EA Sports NBA Live logo and I don't think they are necessarily far off. This is an epic fail. I think the only question about this set of designs is how long until Ballmer pays for a better set. Hopefully he gives it two years this time.

29. Oklahoma City Thunder

For the longest time (OK really just since 2008 when the Thunder arrived in Oklahoma City), the Thunder has had the worst set of logos in the NBA. Thanks to the Clippers, they are now sitting at number 29 on my list and they are pretty safe given the Clips' lack of vision there.

I'm not sure exactly what the deal with the Thunder logo is. I get that it's connected to the native Americans who inhabited the open plains of Oklahoma before the United States government decided to round them all up and make them live (generally speaking) in a confined and maybe totally foreign part of the country. I think that's an honorable gesture on the part of the team. But this logo? A bulging triangle with a partial basketball and two swoopy marks going behind the triangle? I'm not sure they are honoring anyone with that look. I understand it's difficult to convey thunder in a logo since it's a sound but they did a hell of a job with their mascot; just adopt a bison as a logo.

As if the logo itself wasn't bad enough, the team has added insult to injury by rolling out a "secondary logo" and a "third partial logo", all of which are exactly the same with the exception of some words being added or taken away. This is the laziest, cheapest form of having multiple logos. Just keep one. Somehow adding two more with little imagination makes the whole thing just way worse.

28. Denver Nuggets

I have to confess when it comes to the Nuggets, I'm at a bit of a loss for words. This franchise has been horribly mired in mediocrity in the branding departure since the 1970s. After they ditched their excellent prospector with an ABA ball nugget, they've lost their way. First came the 1980s to early 1990s Tetris rainbow logo then they rolled out the primary logo on the above left in gaudy dark blue and copper colors before changing their color scheme to the garish colors above and just re-coloring the same logo in the new colors.

I like the connection between the Rocky Mountains and the Nuggets franchise in the primary logo and the picks and partial mountaintop in the secondary logo help reinforce this theme. But the font in the logo is just terrible (why is it arched?) and the banner with the word "Denver" on it sort of draped on the front of the mountain doesn't work for me. I don't get it.

The Nuggets rolled out a snowy mountaintop third logo (at the top of this post) but this thing can't really stand on it's own and appears custom designed to go on the backs of the player's jerseys in the spot where they moved the NBA logo this past season (to make room for advertising on the fronts of the jerseys). That logo now seems sort of homeless to me. The Nuggets sit at 28 because none of their logos work for me.

27. Detroit Pistons

In evaluating all the logos in the NBA, I came across a team or two with one or two pretty pedestrian and uninspired logos and then one awesome super spectacular logo. Some of those teams ended up higher in my ranking than a lot of teams with solid across the board logos none of which are really going to make a top 10 logos of all time list.

The Pistons are sort of in the opposite category from those teams. The Pistons' primarily logo is really pretty OK. Indeed, I'd say it's better than any of the other logos in this post, even the teams ranked ahead of them. But I have a real issue with the "DP" secondary logo. It's literally just the "P" taken off their main wordmark with then a "D" placed where the hole of the "P" would usually go. This is Clippers logo bad; it's like a joke that someone who was less successful at logo design would invent before the idea got summarily rejected. Only this one never did.

I don't like anything about this secondary logo. Nothing. It's a complete graphic disaster to me. If I were a Pistons fan, I'd refuse to wear any clothing with this abomination on it. Good middle of the pack primarily logo. Worst secondary logo probably ever.

26. Sacramento Kings

If there's a franchise out there with worse overall branding (meaning name, logos, uniforms, colors and product on the court) than the Sacramento Kings, I'm not sure what sport they play or what town they live in. The Kings have been anything but kings for most of their history. Success since they moved to Sacramento seems to be confined to the early years of the 21st Century when they were battling the Lakers in the playoffs. Even back then, their uniforms, colors and logos were still terrible.

Are either of the logos above even remotely palatable for a professional basketball franchise? True, there are basketballs in both designs. But take away the balls and the images would look way more at home in the Tournament of Kings at the Excalibur Hotel in Las Vegas than they do in the National Basketball Association. You might be able to leave the balls back in even. There's nothing modern or taking about the Kings' current logos. These things need a ton of work.

I don't know how to fix the Kings situation. There's no easy answer. But I'd nix the lances to start and make the whole thing less heraldic. It's just not necessary. Surely Vivek can hire someone (or a team of someones none of whom agree) to try to sort this mess out. The Kings ought to feel lucky they finished as high as 26th here.

25. Dallas Mavericks

I love Mark Cuban and everything he does and has done to get his team in position to win an NBA Championship as frequently as possible. But I don't like the Mavericks logos one bit. They are not the abandoned after one game alternate silver unis the Mavs rolled out some years ago, but they are pretty uninspiring.

I'm actually OK with the partial logo shown in the center above, which shows a horse's head in front of a basketball. And I've already rationalized the use of a horse as a Maverick (rather than a cow) in a past post on this same blog. I guess if I were a Mavs fan, I'd look for this logo to be on all my shirts.

But the other two logos, I don't know. I don't understand the whole shield motif on the primary logo and the "Mavericks" wordmark exploding out from the bottom of the design is distracting. But it's a damn sight better than the alternate logo on the right above. I'm not sure what this thing is about. I get the M and the shield and the basketball. I just don't know what's going on for sure.

The horse and the basketball is good enough for the Mavs to finish at the top of the worst list but these designs need work.

NBA Team Name Rank, Part 2

Two weeks ago, I posted Part 1 of a promised three part series about NBA team names. Gotta do something to keep my mind on the NBA in August. Here's Part 2.

Category Five: Not Relevant But Alliterative

I can just hear the cries of woe coming from Cleveland now. Yes, the next two nicknames are not relevant and are also incredibly boring, just like the Cavaliers. And yes, the Cavaliers name is alliterative and the Kings name is not. And why am I even separating boring non-alliterative names from boring alliterative names? All good points and questions, but it's my blog and the Cavs ain't going in the same category as the Wizards. No way, no how. And let's face it, nobody from Cleveland is likely to read this anyway.

20. Sacramento Kings

The NBA traces its history back to the 1946-1947 season when the league began life as the Basketball Association of America or BAA. By the start of the 1949-1950 season, the league had been re-named as the National Basketball Association and the Kings, or Rochester Royals, as they were named at that time, were aboard as part of the partial merger with the National Basketball League in 1948. Since they joined the now-NBA, the Kings have had more names than any other franchise except one, mostly due to their continual movement west. Their evolution starts with the Rochester Royals and continues as follows: Cincinnati Royals, Kansas City-Omaha Kings, Kansas City Kings and finally the Sacramento Kings.

As a nickname, the Kings is OK, sort of middle of the road but not relevant at all, especially since the Kings have never been Kings of the NBA (the Royals were once, in 1951). The Kings come in at number 20 only because their name used to be alliterative in Kansas City and to tweak folks in Cleveland. I'm not sure their original name, the Rochester Seagrams, named after the company they played for, would rank any higher on this list, although it's certainly less generic. Shaquille O'Neal famously referred to the franchise as the Sacramento Queens but we won't go there here.

19. Washington Wizards

I see the Wizards placing 19th on this list (as opposed to first on last year's mascot rank) as proof that my rankings on totally subjective NBA issues don't always favor my beloved D.C. hoops team, although placing them this high is probably a little bit of a homer pick. I just finished writing about how the Kings are the second most named franchise; the Wizards finish first in this category and they blow the Kings away in terms of nicknames. Not sure that's a good thing; I'm just saying.

The Wizards joined the NBA for the 1961-1962 season as the Chicago Packers. A year later, they changed their nickname to the Zephyrs. One year after that, they moved to Baltimore and re-named themselves the Baltimore Bullets (they were the second Baltimore Bullets franchise to exist). The year 1963 often appears on Wizards merchandise as the team's founding year, especially when Abe Pollin ran the team. From there, a little nickname stability kicked in, although the team moved. The team was re-named the Capital Bullets for the 1973-1974 season after a move to Landover, Maryland and a year later they became the Washington Bullets which stuck until 1997 when they became the Washington Wizards. Phew! Glad all that's over.

As a name, Wizards honestly is not very good. The name was chosen in one of those oh-so-brilliant public contests (see Milwaukee Bucks and Cleveland Cavalier in Part 1 of this ranking) that NBA franchises sometimes participate in and so something like Wizards was really to be expected. The name beat out Dragons, Express, Stallions and Sea Dogs. Honestly, I sort of feel lucky we ended up as the Wizards. At least it's alliterative. Let's move on.

Category Six: Relevant But Blah

So finally we are into franchise names that are relevant in their current locations (other than the Milwaukee Bucks which were covered in the first part of this series). From here on out, there's some good stuff and it gets better with each team. Unfortunately, the first two relevant team names are a little uninspired. The worst of the best, if you will.

18. Dallas Mavericks

So Texas has cowboys, right? And cowboys ride horses, right? And everyone loves cowboys, right? Well, maybe not everyone but enough to base a team name on, right? All that is true, but horses is sort of a weak name so Dallas decided to use the name Mavericks, which is really in the truest sense of the word a name for a stray cow. I'll give the Mavs the benefit of the doubt and say their name is relevant. But it's bottom of the barrel relevant.

17. Minnesota Timberwolves

Just like the Mavericks name is OK because there are horses in Texas, the Minnesota Timberwolves name is OK because there are wolves in Minnesota, although wolves are actually pretty darned fierce so the name qualifies on the intimidation / I'm afraid of the actual thing that you are named after scale. The team name (again) was the result of a public contest and Timberwolves beat out Polars (thank God!). Kudos for the Timberwolves for not adopting either of the city's two ABA franchise names, the Muskies or Pipers. Timberwolves is much better.

Category Seven: Singular Plurals / Weather Related

I hate singular team names; just don't like them at all. It's a personal preference but I've known other people who have felt the same way. Oddly enough, two of the NBA's singular team names are weather related. I'm not sure why, but since there's another sort of weather related team name out there, I've put all four of these into a single category. I just feel the need to categorize, I guess.

16. Orlando Magic

Take one guess how the Magic got their name? That's right, it was a contest, this one sponsored by the Orlando Sentinel. The name beat out Heat, Tropics and Juice. You have no idea how much I long for the Orlando Juice. Can you imagine how ridiculous a Juice home game would be against the Washington Sea Dogs or the Minnesota Polars. The juice would have to have orange uniforms, right?Anyway, as a nickname for Orlando, I guess the Magic name ain't bad. There is allegedly no connection to Disney World (aka the Magic Kingdom) but, come on...really? Who's kidding whom here?

Honestly, I got nothing here. How do you show a picture of thunder?

15. Oklahoma City Thunder

The Thunder popped up on the NBA nicknames list in 2008, when the team bolted Seattle and left the Supersonics name behind. Good move, here. The Supersonics, named after Seattle's proximity to Boeing's headquarters, doesn't work in Oklahoma. The name was chosen because of the vicious storms the state experiences yearly but also because the United States Army's 45th infantry division, also known as the Thunderbirds, resided in Oklahoma City from their founding in 1920 to their deactivation in 1968. That last part is really awesome, actually.

14. Miami Heat

I get it...Miami is hot. Hot = Heat. Cool!

I still think the Suns should change their mascot to the Jimmy Dean Sun. Just saying...

13. Phoenix Suns

The Suns finish at the top of this category, if only because they do not have a singular nickname, which I've already expressed some disdain for. Oh...and it's hot in Phoenix, just like it's hot in Miami. I guess the Sun is hotter than heat (although that could honestly be debated) and Phoenix is hotter than Miami so that works too.

Category Eight: Accidentally Relevant

Sometimes franchises move from one city to another, refuse to change their nickname and end up with a moniker that makes no sense for their current location (see Category Two in Part 1). Other teams get luckier. With no intent in mind, these franchises moved and somehow the names worked better than in their original cities.

12. Detroit Pistons

So the Pistons are named for the automotive industry that has been the calling card of Detroit for decades, right? Detroit is the "motor city" after all. Well, that's true but the Pistons name has nothing to do with Detroit. The Pistons were named after Fred Zollner's company, a Fort Wayne based outfit which happened to manufacture pistons for automobiles and trains. The team began play in the NBL way back in 1941, initially as the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons, although by 1948 the Zollner part of the name was gone, shortened simply to the Fort Wayne Pistons. Zollner moved the team to Detroit in 1957 and impressively, gave the team name some thought. Ultimately, he decided the team name worked in Detroit, which it most certainly does.

11. Houston Rockets

OK, so we were wrong about intuitive thoughts on the Pistons name, but the Rockets have to be named  after Houston's prominent role in NASA's space flight programs going all the way back to the Mercury program, the program that featured the first American manned space flights, right? Ummm…no! Like the Pistons, the Rockets are transplants (this time from San Diego) who retained their original name because it just worked. The original name selection was based on the local (San Diego) development of the Atlas rocket; obviously the name worked even better in Houston. The Rockets beat out the Pistons for 11th in my ranking because they are just way more impressive. I'm not really confident I could draw a piston; I know I can draw a rocket.

So that's it. 11 through 20 done. Only the top ten remain. You'll have to wait a week for that.

NBA Mascot Rank, Part 4

So here we are at part four of my mascot rankings on the fourth Friday of August 2013. By now, I think we are finally into mascots who are clearly relevant to the teams they represent and for sure either look good or have cool names. We're not quite in the inner circle of mascot royalty; that group comes next week in the fifth and final part of this countdown. We are going to spend a lot of time in the Western Conference today as we count down 12 through 7. Let's get right to it.

12: Crunch, Minnesota Timberwolves

Of all the animal mascots in the NBA, Crunch might be the most realistic, which scores big points with me. This thing actually looks like a semi-credible wolf. Not like he'd be putting fear into me while stalking Liam Neeson in The Grey but if I were lacking my glasses and getting a little senile like 30 years from now, I might actually be shocked to see a wolf roaming around the Target Center. And he's clearly relevant, right? I mean it's a wolf for a team named the Timberwolves.

I'll pass on the name though. Crunch? Crunching bones? Crunch time? Good enough for the top dozen but not super excited. I realize Moondog's continuing to get screwed here. Too bad. Let's move on.

11: Champ, Dallas Mavericks

There are some folks out there who claim that the Mavericks' choice of a horse mascot is inappropriate; that the term maverick only really applies to a calf. Maverick is a word used in the southwestern United States to describe an unbranded range animal. Mavericks were unowned property, able to be claimed by the first person who branded the animal and were admittedly usually cattle. However, there are a few references online to the term maverick applying to a horse so I'm giving the Mavericks the benefit of the doubt here; I may be doing the wrong thing by allowing this but they beat the Heat two years ago in the Finals so they get some allowance for that.

Accepting the horse as an appropriate mascot, Champ looks pretty good. He's clearly a horse or probably more accurately his head clearly resembles a horse and graphically he works pretty well. If this had been three years ago, I would have had real issue with the name Champ since at that time the Mavericks never had been champions. But since 2011, the name is more than appropriate. Thumbs up for this mascot.

10: Slamson, Sacramento Kings

There's a total love-hate thing going on for me with this mascot. On simply an appearance basis, there's no way Slamson should rank as high as 10th in this or any other countdown. It's just not a good look. It's barely obvious that it's a lion, perhaps a little less believable than Bert Lahr's cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz. I totally realize that the cowardly lion had the benefit of makeup and not having to do backflip dunks in front of thousands of people but The Wizard of Oz was also made in 1939 for crying out loud. Surely this mascot could look a little better given the 74 years that have transpired since '39.

But on a name and relevance basis, Slamson's pretty cool. The relevance is obviously based on the Kings name translating to king of the jungle. Alright, good choice. I'm a believer. Samson's a great name choice for a lion because in the Bible, Samson's encounter with a lion is an important event in his life. I realize now we are one degree of separation from King but I'm still believing. Finally, I like the small alteration of Samson to Slamson to tie it all back to basketball. Terrible looking mascot but I get the name and relevance. It works for me.

9: Hooper, Detroit Pistons

Just like Slamson, I find the Pistons' mascot, Hooper, very appealing in two of my three evaluation criteria. Unlike Slamson, whose name I find awesome, Hooper's name sucks. I mean, OK, it's relevant to basketball but the name could be applied to a mascot anywhere in the country with any other team nickname and it would be no less or more relevant.

On the positive side, I do find a horse mascot to be relevant in Detroit and here I'm making a (not too far fetched) leap of faith from Pistons to cars to horsepower to horses. The Pistons' ugliest uniforms ever in the early 2000s featured a horse so I don't think I'm making a blind leap here. I also love the appearance of Hooper. In fact, I believe I'd feel comfortable saying that Hooper is maybe the best looking mascot in the NBA. He's well designed and straddles the line between real horse and cartoon like horse pretty well. Despite all that praise, Hooper only finishes ninth.

8: Rumble The Bison, Oklahoma City Thunder

Animal mascots abound in the NBA. There are cats of every size, a few bears, a mixed pack of dogs, a couple of horses, a cow, a bird, a deer and a gorilla. Are any of those animals cooler than a Bison? I think not. I remember my excitement in Yellowstone National Park when I saw my first wild bison. And while Rumble the Bison doesn't come close to that experience, having a bison for a mascot is pretty damn cool. I'm almost jealous. Almost!

So not withstanding the coolness of the bison (which let's face it is the reason for the number eight spot), Rumble is an OK looking mascot and he's clearly relevant to the history of Oklahoma. He also ties in pretty well with the hints of native American motifs in the Thunder's logo and color scheme. The existence of several native American tribes was pretty much tied wholeheartedly to the buffalo. I also like the name a lot. Rumble evokes the sound of the bison herds running across the plains but clearly hits high on the word association with the team's nickname.

7: The Coyote, San Antonio Spurs

OK, so I know I ranted about the name of Toronto's mascot "The Raptor" because of the utter lack of creativity in its name. So how can I rank a mascot called "The Coyote" so high? Isn't that just a little hypocritical? The answer is no, and I can explain.

First, the name of the franchise is not the San Antonio Coyotes so making the leap from the franchise name to a regionally recognizable animal gets the Spurs some points here. I realize it is near impossible to make a mascot out of an actual spur, but that didn't stop the Rockets picking bear or the Pacers and Trail Blazers coming up with a cat. At least the Spurs picked an animal relevant to the state of Texas where the franchise is located.

Secondly, The Coyote is missing the Barney factor that haunts The Raptor. Granted, this coyote isn't going to put any fear into opponents much more than Toronto's mascot but at least I don't have "I love you, you love me..." going through my head when I see it (you're singing that song now, aren't you?). 

But finally, and most importantly, The Coyote is credited with inventing the t-shirt cannon. It's true. The t-shirt cannon is so important to the daily lives of mascots in getting fans fired up for free crap, that this reason more than any other is why The Coyote is not only 11 spots ahead of The Raptor, but also gets the seventh spot, ahead of arguably stronger competition. He's a pioneer like no other mascot. 'Nuff said.

One more part to go. Remaining teams in alphabetical order: Atlanta Hawks, Chicago Bulls, Denver Nuggets, Milwaukee Bucks, Orlando Magic, Washington Wizards.

Wow! It's A Winning Streak!

Wizards with John Wall > Wizards without John Wall. 8-0 in his last eight games.

After winning only four games in their first 32 tries this season, the Wizards have managed to win in each of their past three tries and have their first winning streak of the season. This winning streak is legitimate. It's not like last year's season ending six game winning streak against teams resting their starters for the playoffs and the hapless Charlotte Bobcats. This streak is against good competition. OK, maybe not Monday night's win against the Orlando Magic but when you own the worst record in the league, every team is good competition from a certain point of view. The result of the last three games is the Wizards' longest in season winning streak since April of 2011. It certainly feels better than losing.

I guess I'd like to say I saw this coming but I didn't exactly. Not in these three games even though things didn't really look as bad as the win-loss record suggested. Despite having a 7-28 record, the Wizards have been competitive in most games. 19 of our 28 losses have been by single digits. Five of our 35 games went to either single or double overtime. Unfortunately, all those overtime games were losses, including a game where we led Brooklyn by eight at home in overtime with less than 90 seconds to go. This past week, John Wall finally returned to the lineup against Atlanta and Nenê had recently moved into the starting lineup. Even with all those positive signs, there was still the fact that we had just failed to finish a number of games we could have won and even though we had a full complement of players for practice for a day or two, injuries to Cartier Martin and leading scorer Jordan Crawford seemed to balance what could have been seen as a glass half full situation.

Nene > Josh Smith last Saturday night.

We had already come close to beating Atlanta a couple of times this season and had notched a win against the Orlando Magic so the notion of being able to topple one of those two teams in the current three game stretch wasn't completely implausible. But beating the defending Western Conference Champion and pretty-much-best-team-in-the-league Oklahoma City Thunder seemed very improbable. Add the news that we had only nine healthy players, two of whom were playing for the first time in several weeks, and it seemed downright hilarious that we even could remain competitive. But our guys came out strong, shared the ball and competed, just like they did against the defending NBA Champion Miami Heat the month before. And at the end of regulation, after a fortunate bounce off an ill-advised A. J. Price shot got us the ball back, Bradley Beal managed to hit the game winner with 0.3 seconds on the clock to send us home winners and make us two for two in games against last season's NBA finalists.

After the euphoria of the big win over the Thunder and a season long four whole days off, the Atlanta Hawks arrived in town for the final game of four against the Wizards (the first three all Hawks wins). Our team was buoyed by the return of franchise player John Wall in that game but how he fared in his first game back was better than I expected. John looked both sharp and rusty: he was clearly faster than most guys on the court despite an almost three month absence from game play but his jumper showed signs of getting back into the groove. We seemed to be ahead almost the entire game. The lead ebbed and flowed from about three points to nine points behind a good team effort and a domination of Hawks' star Josh Smith by Nenê. Nenê is just obviously way smarter than Smith and he killed him on the offensive and defensive ends. The result was our first double digit victory of the year. Oh, and I continued to chip away at my Wizards 15 minutes of fame with about a two second appearance on TV. Adding that appearance to my stints in Las Vegas and Indiana I think gets me up to about a minute and half.

And then Monday night the struggling Orlando Magic came to town. After a surprising start to the season following the blockbuster Dwight Howard trade, the Magic have fallen back to Earth hard. Our team jumped on the Magic early, riding a spectacular first half from Emeka Okafor (I know...who knew?) to a 19 point lead with a few minutes to go. But then the whole thing seemed to collapse. In a stunning turnover filled run, including a failed walking the dog attempt by John Wall (never seen that fail before by the way), Orlando cut the lead to six at the break. I was stunned for the entire halftime, wondering if we had blown our chance at three in a row. Turns out I didn't really have anything to worry about because we turned it on in the second half behind spectacular plays from Wall including an insane dribble misdirection that literally floored the Magic's Ish Smith and an alley oop to Bradley Beal for a vicious slam. Jan Vesely showed his best overall performance and the team rolled, winning going away by 29. We even had our first good garbage time of the year when forgotten man Chris Singleton closed out the game.

Now that was more like it! I'm thinking this is what I signed up for when I bought into owner Ted Leonsis' rebuilding plan. Now we just need to keep it up on the road, where we have managed only a single victory this year. The team left DC yesterday for what could be a brutal west coast swing, although I think there are a couple of winnable games in there.

Up tonight: the Sacramento Kings. Despite the 10 p.m. Eastern start, I think I'm staying up to watch it. Hopefully my hopes aren't too high.