Great Nicknames

I was just reading one of the most entertaining Washington Wizards blogs out there, called Wizznutzz. These guys are hilarious, spell poorly, and rarely talk about basketball. Anyway, they actually did manage to link to an article in the Washington Post about the decline of cool nicknames in basketball. Unfortunately, it's all true.

We used to have Magic, Dr. J, the Admiral, Earl The Pearl, Chocolate Thunder, the Dunkin' Dutchman, the Iceman, the Microwave, Pistol Pete...I could go on for hours.

I mean, we've got a few these days, but they're just not mainstream enough. Most people call Gilbert Arenas just his name, instead of Agent Zero.

Allen Iverson has one of the coolest nicknames - The Answer. I mean, it doesn't matter what the question is, he's The Answer. But people call him AI now. AI? That's not a nickname, that's his initials!

Same with the Big Ticket, aka Da Kid...now reduced to KG.

Today, we've got T-Mac, D-Wade (though Shaq tried to call him "Flash"), C-Webb, CP3 (Chris Paul, who wears, you guessed it, #3...at least Andrei Kirilenko gets a half-decent nickname for wearing #47 - AK-47!), J-Rich, J-Will, etc. Can we possibly be less creative??

And seriously, who in their right mind calls Tim Duncan "The Big Fundamental" - that has got to be the worst nickname in the history of sports.

I mean, we've got some good nicknames out there, but the sheer quantity isn't there: Baron Davis is "Boom Dizzle" (must be a Cali thing). Paul Pierce is "The Truth". Shawn Marion is "The Matrix".

Anyway, if basketball is going re-live it's glory days, let's get some new nicknames, people. Starting with the Wolves. I can't believe Al Jefferson is just "Big Al". SNOOZE.