Ranking Sports: The Best NBA Team Names

14 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by percivalhenry in Ranking Sports

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Welcome to the latest installment in an (extremely) occasional, and occasionally controversial, series ranking the best team names in pro sports. Earlier editions ranked the best names in baseball and the NFL. This time, we’re doing the NBA. As before, I’m using three basic criteria:

Originality. How unusual or creative is the name? Is it unique, or a generic name used by other teams?
Geographic specificity. Does the name reflect or honor the team’s city or region? Would it sound weird if the team was relocated (a major problem in the NBA – stay tuned)?
Unmaketability. I like names that aren’t designed to sell merchandise. The more off-beat or quirky the name, the better.

And for the NBA, I’m adding a fourth category:

Basketballishness. Basically, how well does the name fit the sport? Basketball names should evoke action and movement. The Fairbanks Glaciers would not be a good basketball name.

Lastly, this is not science. I’m ranking them according to my preferences. I’ll weigh some categories differently depending on the team. Disagree with my choices? Cool. Leave a comment, or even better, compile your own list and I’ll run it here. On to the rankings:

30, Toronto Raptors

The NBA has a lot of generically bad team names, but only one objectively awful one. The Raptors came into existence in 1994, hot on the heels of Jurassic Park, the Steven Spielberg blockbuster featuring velociraptors, a nasty sort of dinosaur. Naming your team after the flavor-of-the-month movie means selling out your long-term identity for a quick marketing boost, and should be beneath an NBA team. A worse option would be the Toronto Terminators, but not by much. It’s too bad, because Toronto otherwise has interesting team names: the whimsical Blue Jays, the strangely spelled Maple Leafs and even the CFL’s Argonauts (which is actually a great name). Maybe some enlightened future owner will see the light and change it.

29, Brooklyn Nets

It’s not a horrible name so much as a deeply peculiar one. Naming your team after a piece of equipment suggests either a profound lack of imagination or misunderstanding the purpose of a name. A team name should create an identity, forge a bond with your fans and inspire them and your players. Naming your team after string does none of those things. It’s like naming a team after furniture.

28, Washington Wizards

This feels a bit unfair, since the Washington Bullets, under owner Abe Pollin, changed their name for the noblest of purposes, to disassociate the team from the gun violence that plagued their city. But did he have to pick a new one that was so lame? There’s something particularly pathetic about the name, as if it was selected by a panel of kindergartners. Wizards cast spells and recruit hobbits to find rings. They have nothing to do with basketball or Washington. Here’s a hint for would-be team namers: Alliteration is rarely your friend.

27, Sacramento Kings

The first in a string of inoffensive, yet totally boring and nondescript team names. The Kings have bounced around from city to city, and their name hasn’t made sense in any of them. Since when is monarchy a good thing? Why did we fight a revolution?

26, Atlanta Hawks

The NBA doesn’t have as many bird names as baseball and football, but Hawks may be the worse of all of them. Completely generic, the Hawks could play in any sport in any city.

25, Golden State Warriors

Another bland name with no distinguishing characteristics. The “Golden State” part is at least interesting; maybe more teams should adopt the state’s nickname. The Empire State Yankees has nice ring to it.

24, Cleveland Cavaliers

The Cavaliers, if I remember my history, were English nobility loyal to King Charles I during the English Civil War of 1642 -1651. What this has to do with basketball in Cleveland, I have no idea. I’d give them points for creativity except the University of Virginia beat them to the moniker. A naming choice driven mostly, it seems, by alliteration.

23, Milwaukee Bucks

Another name chosen pretty much at random (team records say it was the result of a contest, with R.D. Trebilcox of Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, the winning entrant). I’m not aware of any other Bucks out there, so it’s modestly original, but I’m also not aware of any other teams named for animals celebrated for getting shot, decapitated and their heads hung on the walls of redneck bars.

22, Los Angeles Clippers

The Clippers used to be in San Diego, where the name at least made some sense: a clipper is a sailing ship, and San Diego is a nautical sort of city. But like a lot of NBA names, it became an oddity after the team moved. (Yes, I know LA is also on the ocean, but yachting is hardly the first thing you think of). And unfortunately for the historically inept franchise, the name lends itself to various “clip joint” jokes. But it’s still better than the Buffalo Braves, the team’s first name.

21, Los Angeles Lakers

One of the NBA’s most decorated teams, the Lakers have labored under one of pro sports’ geographically weirdest names. Los Angeles is literally lake-less, unless you want to count the Silver Lake Reservoir (or the La Brea Tar Pits). The name traveled with the team from Minneapolis, Land of 10,000 Lakes, in 1960. Do they deserve credit for not changing it? Maybe, because the alternative could have been far worse. But even if they were still in Minneapolis, it’s not a particularly rousing name. I award one bonus point for rhyming with “fast-break makers,” as per the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

20, Orlando Magic

The Magic isn’t as bad as it first appears. The name nods at Orlando’s Disney empire, and Magic Johnson gives it some basketball cred. I don’t even object to using a singular noun to describe a team. But Magic is just so cheesy.

19, Memphis Grizzlies

Yet another misplaced team. The Grizzlies began life as the Vancouver Grizzlies before they moved in 2001. In a strange twist, they’re actually the second iteration of the Memphis Grizzlies; the first was a short-lived pro football team. Since there is some history, and because Grizzlies once could be found on the plains, the name isn’t quite as out of place as others.

18, Phoenix Suns

Sure, it’s hot and sunny in Phoenix, but lots of cities get sunshine. The bigger problem is the ponderous nature of the sun. It’s a massive ball of burning gas hanging in the sky, which is not very basketballish. Technically, the sun is moving through the galaxy at 500,000 mph, but it can’t exactly turn on a dime. (It’s also unclear why the name is plural – what other suns are they talking about? Alpha centauri?) Phoenix’s WNBA team, the Mercury, has a much better name.

17, Denver Nuggets

It’s hard to imagine a team willingly naming themselves the Nuggets, so they get credit for being creative, original and, in the context of Colorado’s gold mines, regionally specific. But maybe the only object less mobile than a sun is a lump of rock. Wikipedia tells me the franchise began life as the Denver Larks, before changing their name to Rockets. It pains me to say it, but Nuggets is an upgrade over those.

16, Dallas Mavericks

I’ll admit to my inconsistency here: the Mavericks name, chosen in a 1980 fan contest, was at least partially influenced by the TV show (and James Garner had an ownership stake). So what makes it so much better than Raptors? Maverick, at least, has some regional meaning – a maverick is cowboy-speak for an unbranded calf – and a maverick personality fits basketball better than, you know, a dinosaur. And the name just sounds better. This is not an exact science.

15, Utah Jazz

I wrestled with what to do with the Jazz. If the team was still in New Orleans, it might be at the top these rankings. “New Orleans Jazz” has everything: regional specificity, originality and basketball flair (does any art form suggest basketball, with its improvisational energy, more than jazz?). But they’ve been in Salt Lake City since 1979, and the name, as someone once quipped, makes as much sense as the New Orleans Tabernacle Choir. It’s hard to think of a city less jazzy than SLC, making the name not just strange but wrong. I have them ranked in the middle tier, but not with a lot of confidence.

14, Indiana Pacers

Not terrible, but not great either. Evoking Indianapolis 500 pace cars, and the local harness racing industry, the name ticks the right boxes, and it at least suggests movement. Maybe it’s the association with the hideous AMC hatchback, but Pacers falls flat for me.

13, Chicago Bulls

The Bulls are a perfectly satisfactory name. The name draws from Chicago’s stockyards, and sounds right. Bulls aren’t the most nimble animals, but they’re more mobile than the team’s Chinese translation, the Red Oxen.

12, Houston Rockets

Another solid name. It’s got a local connection – “Houston, we have a problem” – and Rockets are fast and dangerous. A bit generic, but not bad.

11, Charlotte Hornets

Taking their name from a bit of Revolutionary War lore (Lord Cornwallis allegedly referred to the city as “a veritable hornet’s nest of rebellion”), Hornets are quick, fierce and have a sharp sting, all good basketballish qualities. It’s a much better name than the unfortunate Bobcats, which the city was saddled with for a few years.

10, San Antonio Spurs

I give the Spurs lots of credit for originality. It’s not an obvious choice – it does fall into the equipment category – yet fits the region, and as a verb, contains a lot of action. And like a lot of good sports names, is short enough to fit nicely into a headline. The team started life as the Dallas Chaparrals, which also wasn’t bad, although a bit obscure.

9, Miami Heat

Another singular name, and much better than its upstate rival, the Magic. Yes, lots of places are hot, but the short name packs a lot of punch. It suggests both temperature and attitude, which fits Miami well. It also suggests intensity, which is maybe not a Mimi trait, but good to have in a basketball team. And while I’m not grading logos, theirs is one the the best marriages between name and image in all of sports.

T7, New York Knicks and Boston Celtics

Two names that just go together. They’re both TNEEG-SDANAs (Teams Named for a European Ethnic Group that Settled in Defined Areas of North America, like the Vikings), they’re either hard to pronounce (Kanicks?) or mispronounced (ask someone in Ireland to say Celtic) and have nothing to do with basketball. Yet they’re historic, colorful and have persisted for decades, long after their region’s denizens stopped being identified by their Dutch or Irish roots. Needless to say, no one was thinking about selling jerseys when they chose these names.

6, New Orleans Pelicans

Another bird, but instead of a sharp-beaked raptor (ahem), New Orleans went out of the box with pelicans, a big, dopey looking bird with a goofy bill. It’s very local. The team says it chose the name because “it represents the culture and resolve of the Gulf Coast region while also symbolizing Louisiana’s most pressing initiative of coastal restoration and wildlife conservation.” That sounds like a lot to ask for in a team name, but its still interesting and colorful. Pelicans also have a wingspan up to 12 feet, a very useful trait in basketball.

5, Minnesota Timberwolves

A classically good name. Wolves are relentless and can run forever, and adding “timber” attaches it to the woods of northern Minnesota. And a much better choice than its predecessor Lakers.

4, Oklahoma City Thunder

I was tempted to punish the Thunder for erasing the name of one of sports’s great names, the Seattle Supersonics. But this ranking doesn’t have an ethics component, so I can’t dock them for their trickery and deceit. And it is a great name: it evokes big storms rolling across the prairie, and thunderous dunks. Yeah, it’s a bit commercial, but I can live with it.

3, Portland Trailblazers

Trailblazers suggests pioneers, creativity and Lewis & Clark; ‘Blazers, it’s shortened version, evokes speed and dash. An excellent name.

2, Philadelphia 76ers

76ers combines a name that’s distinctly local, completely unmarketable, and a lot of fun. Like the San Francisco 49ers, it’s a name that’s perfect in Philly, and would make no sense elsewhere. And while it’s not overtly basketballish, I’d argue the patriotic red, white and blue color scheme is reminiscent of the ABA’s old circus ball, and “Sixers” just sounds fast.

1, Detroit Pistons

This one has it all, a near-perfect synthesis of originality, regional specificity and basketballish action. Yes, the team was born in Ft. Wayne, but Pistons have an even stronger connection to Detroit’s auto industry, and are an inspired alternative to something like coupes or hotrods. And the fast, driving power of a piston is an exact match for the speed of basketball. Even the motion evokes dribbling. Pistons does pretty much everything a team name should, and does it with panache.

Ranking Sports: Some observations

15 Thursday May 2014

Posted by percivalhenry in Ranking Sports, Sports

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baseball, rankings

So that was interesting.

My post ranking major league baseball team names got almost 2,000 visitors yesterday, thanks to a link on the very cool Uni Watch blog here. That’s by far the biggest single day in this little blog’s brief history, and I’m thrilled that so many people took the time to check it out. My post also got about 25 comments and most of them were not, ahem, very complimentary. That’s cool, too. The fact that people took the time to compose (mostly) polite and reasoned responses means they were engaged, and that’s all I can ask for. If the comments were critical, well, if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen …

When you write about something as deeply felt as sports (or art history, for that matter), it’s going to rile people up, and if you’re going to rank teams – for whatever reason – it’s going to piss people off. Fans of every team – save, I guess, the Orioles – feel I didn’t properly appreciate their team name, and should rank it higher. But in ranking 30 teams, some are going to be ranked highly and others low. So my instinctual response to this grumbling is to just say, `Fine, I screwed up and I’m moving every team up 10 places.’

I did want to make a few more specific points, which I probably didn’t make clear in the post’s introduction.

1, This is an aesthetic, not scientific, exercise. It’s a ranking of the team names in the order I like them. The criteria I listed served to guide my decisions, not to compel them. And I never intended to give all three criteria equal ranking in every case (at one point I considered assigning numerical values to each and adding them up but I rejected that because it felt too rigid). So, for example, in the case of the Diamondbacks, while they meet two of my criteria – it’s a unique name and more-or-less geographically specific- it’s such a blatantly ugly and commercial name, that criteria overwhelmed the others.

2, History counts, but it’s not the determining factor in how I feel about a name. A boring, historical name is still a boring name. So whatever the origins of the names Tigers, Pirates and Giants, they’re still bland, generic names used by other teams in other sports in other cities. Even if the Tigers wore orange socks in 1890, that’s not something specific to Detroit or even baseball. (It should also be noted there’s a lot of debate, even in the comments to my post, over the stories behind some of these names). Lastly, even if the origins of names Tigers and Pirates were non-feline or piratical, it hasn’t kept the teams from cloaking themselves in Tiger and Pirate iconography. If they had a claim to uniqueness, they lost it when they trotted out the trite mascots.

3, I didn’t make racism one of my explicit criteria, but I guess I should have. I don’t like it.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone who checked out the post and stay tuned for my next ranking project: World Cup soccer uniforms. I doubt anyone will have opinions about those.

Ranking Sports: Best major league baseball team names

12 Monday May 2014

Posted by percivalhenry in Ranking Sports, Sports

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rankings, sports

This is the first of what I hope will be a series of ranking of some things I tend to care about in sports, like team names, logos, stadiums, uniform designs etc. Because it’s ~~April~~ May, we’re starting with the nicknames of the 30 major league baseball teams. The rankings are based on my criteria, which are as follows:

* Originality. Unusual or historic names will score higher. Names used by dozens of teams – I’m looking at you, Tigers – will fare less well. Even if the team was the first to use it, if other have copied it, I’m taking points off, because of criteria No. 2.

* Specificity. Does the name only make sense for that team, for reasons of history or geography? Names that can be applied to any team, in any sport, won’t score well. Great non-basketball examples of good, location-specific teams are the Minnesota Vikings and the (late, lamented) Seattle Supersonics.

* Lack of marketability. I prefer names that weren’t devised with cap or jersey sales in mind, but reflect historical accidents or the quirks of fans or owners. The less menacing the animal or creature, the more I tend to like it. Probably the worst offender in this category in all of sports are the Toronto Raptors.

(Note: it’s come to my attention that a few team names I’ve ranked lower on the list – namely the Nationals and Mets – are nods to older, defunct teams. I still think those are boring names but feel free to bump them up a few notches).

And the team with the best name in baseball is:

1, Baltimore Orioles

As much as it pains me personally, as a Yankees fan, the Orioles get the nod. The Baltimore Oriole is a small bird (icterus galbula) that eats grubs and small insects. Not only is their name original, it’s hard to pronounce, sounds like Oreo and must be a marketers nightmare. It’s specific to the region – the bird got its name because it shares its colors with the coat of arms of Lord Baltimore – and a nice nod to history. The team, formerly the St. Louis Browns, adopted the name of an early incarnation of the Orioles when they moved to Baltimore in 1954 (that earlier version, which left Baltimore in 1901, became the Yankees).

2, Minnesota Twins

Named after the Twin Cities, the Twins could only play in Minneapolis (or St. Paul). There’s nothing menacing or dangerous about twins, and you can’t design a twin mascot. But it does have a nice, zingy sound, it fits nicely in headlines and it’s got the word “win” in it. It’s a great baseball nickname.

3, St. Louis Cardinals

Another small, colorful bird. The Cardinals spent a year as the Perfectos – which might have gotten them even higher on this list – before adopting the Cardinal nickname in 1900. There’s something dignified and elegant about the bird, and it fits this very successful franchise. It only loses points because other teams have used the nickname, most notably the Arizona Cardinals which began as the Chicago Cardinals in 1920 (and which took its name from an even earlier team, the Racine Cardinals, which began using that name in 1901).

4, Houston Astros

Short for Astronauts, the Astros have great local flavor. Houston is home of the Johnson Space Center, which directs NASA missions. No other city could name its team the Astros (although the Houston Rockets took similar inspiration). Astronauts were pretty cool in the 1960s – when the team was renamed from the Colt .45s – and the name has a fun, retro quality. The image of a puffy-suited astronaut bouncing round the moon doesn’t exactly suggest winning baseball. I don’t recall their ever having an astronaut mascot and they’ve gone through lots of color and logo redesigns (I like the one above best) but they’ve used the star in all of them.

5, Milwaukee Brewers

Another classic example of a city-specific nickname. They brew beer in other cities, of course, but not even St. Louis is as associated with brewing as Milwaukee. Like the Steelers, it’s a blue-collar name that plays off the city’s industrial identity. I preferred their old ball-in-mitt logo, but the new one (above), with its shafts of wheat, is even more evocative of old-timey beer making.

6, Los Angeles Dodgers

The Dodgers are a problem: it’s a great name but one that obviously makes no geographic sense. In Brooklyn, the name was a shortened version of Trolley Dodgers (and before that, they were awesomely named Superbas, giving the Perfectos a run for the money), named for the borough’s street cars. And that makes it an excellent name: regional character, with a sense of fun and whimsy. In Los Angeles, they join the Lakers (and, in spirit, the Utah Jazz) as teams whose names are vestiges of their original cities. But I give them credit for sticking with a name that has character rather than abandoning it to take on a newer, blander identity (see: Nationals).

7, Chicago Cubs

Is there anything less menacing than a Cub? It’s a bit too universal – there’s nothing specifically Chicago about Cubs (or even Bears) – but it is unique. No other team seems to have copied them. There’s something about a soft, clumsy baby bear that seems to fit the way the Cubs play baseball, too.

8, Philadelphia Phillies

The Phillies are a sort of an un-mascot. It’s more of a nickname, and not a very imaginative one, and feels like a barely-thought out European soccer name (ie, Wolverhampton Wolves, Wigan Lactics) But it scores high on all my criteria and I like how unmarketable it is.

9, Los Angeles Angels

An excellent name. A reference to the City of Angels, it’s specific, unique and highly unthreatening. It also lends itself to the cool halo logo.

10, Boston Red Sox

Another one that pains me, but the Red Sox name is so stupid, it’s great. It’s a misspelling of a clothing item the team doesn’t wear, it’s impossible to turn into a mascot, and could only exist if it was adopted more than a century ago. I’m downgrading it because it’s not really Boston-specific (like the Celtics and Patriots) and they trailed the White Sox by a few years.

11, San Diego Padres

One of the goofiest names in sports, I’m going with their old logo to remind you that, yes, they named the team after Spanish monks. Not exactly designed to strike fear into their opponents hearts.

12, New York Yankees

I’m a Yankees fan, but the name never made a lot of sense to me. “Yankee” usually refers to a New Englander, like in a “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” and not a New Yorker. But even if it’s geographically inexact, it’s still a good name: regional, unusual and slightly odd. It’s quirkiness has been obscured by the team’s success.

13, Seattle Mariners

A solid, unpretentious name. I liked their old trident logo, but the compass one is more dignified. While I guess you can have Mariners anywhere there’s water, it seems pretty unlikely another team will ever adopt this name.

14, Chicago White Sox

Since they predate the Red Sox, I suppose they should be ranked higher. But sports socks are supposed to be white, so while it’s still odd to name your team for your socks, it’s less odd if they’re white. They do get points for their secondary nickname, the Pale Hose.

15, Miami Marlins

There’s a lot of reasons to dislike the Marlins, but their name isn’t one of them. It evokes the old Miami of sport fishing and Earnest Hemingway, and has a nice, sharp baseball sound to it.

16, Oakland Athletics

The Athletics are a historically bland name, which in my system both helps and hurts them. The name is clearly an ancient relic, but the fact they were the Athletics in Philadelphia and Kansas City before Oakland makes clear how universal it is. I much prefer Athletics to the truncated “A’s”, though, and I like their elephant mascot, which of course makes no sense.

17, Texas Rangers

Not a bad name – a salute to the historic Texas Rangers – but a bit too rootin’, tootin’ for me. And there’s a New York Rangers hockey team, whose name makes less sense but they got there first.

18, Kansas City Royals

I had the Royals a lot lower – the name seems completely unsuited for this very un-royal midwest city – but I read up on the origin of their name, and it’s derived from the American Royal livestock show, apparently a Kanas City institution. So it gets points for history and a connection to the city, even if it’s not readily apparent.

19, Cincinnati Reds

Like the Athletics, the Reds have a lot of history – they’re the oldest club in major league baseball – but the name is uninspired. Formerly the Red Stockings, they chose boring over quirky (as opposed to the the Red Sox). They get some credit for persisting with their name through the Cold War, although lose some for temporarily abandoning it in favor of the Redlegs during the 1950s.

20, New York Mets

Just a weird, unlovable name. I’ll give it points for being completely uncynical, but it’s generic to the point of ridiculous (couldn’t every city name its team the Metropolitans?). The fact that it’s the third institution in New York nicknamed Met – after a museum and opera – doesn’t help.

21, Toronto Blue Jays

Inoffensive, and an homage (or rip off) of the bird nicknames higher on this list, but also generic. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing specifically Toronto about Blue Jays, and the name seems to have been chosen in part because the team owner of the time, Labatt Brewery, made Labatt Blue.

22, Colorado Rockies

Not terrible but sort of bland and obvious.

23, Washington Nationals

Formerly the Montreal Expos, the franchise gave up that colorful and odd name for the grim, institutional sounding Nationals. It sounds like a compromise chosen by a committee, with an eye toward fitting in newspaper headlines. In a city full of groups named things like the National Association of Insurance Actuaries, maybe it makes sense but couldn’t they have found something more fun? Even the Senators – the name of the two previous Washington franchises – would have been better. And Senators are definitely not fun.

24, Tampa Bay Rays

I actually preferred their first name, the Devil Rays, even if it violates my own rule because it was such a naked grab for T-shirt sales. But it had some local character and I like teams named for seafood. Lopping off the Devil seems designed to appease Florida’s religious conservatives, and the result is a weak nod to the state’s sunshine, which is odd for a team that plays indoors. If they were aggressively appealing to teenagers with Devil Rays, now they’re chasing the senior citizens who want to sit in the sun.

25, San Francisco Giants

We’re now in the realm of the vague and boring. The Giants may be an old and distinguished franchise, but their name is dull. That it survived a trans-continental move, and inspired the name of a football team, just proves the point.

26, Detroit Tigers

There are no Tigers in Detroit. Or in Princeton, Missouri, Auburn, Baton Rouge or any of the other dozen places that use the name.

27, Pittsburgh Pirates

No pirates in Pittsburgh, either.

28, Atlanta Braves

We’re now moving from aesthetically offensive to just plain offensive. The Braves are an improvement over the Indians – naming your team after a subset of a subjugated people seems preferable than naming it after the entire people – and both are a whole lot better than the Redskins, but it’s still not cool. I might feel differently it there was any intelligence behind the appropriation, but it’s a Hollywood/Davey Crockett version of Indian identity. They seem to have exiled Chief Noc-A-Homa and his tepee in the bleachers, but the tomahawk and name remain.

29, Cleveland Indians

See the Braves, above. The Indians may or may not have been named after former player Louis Sockalexis, a Native American, but whatever. It’s still blatantly racist. And if the name doesn’t convince you, check out Chief Wahoo.

30, Arizona Diamondbacks

While not as problematic as the Braves and Indians, those teams at least have history as an excuse. The Diamondbacks are baseball’s best (or worst) example of choosing a name for commercial purposes. Instead of considering baseball’s tradition of easy-going names, they tried to adopt the menace of a venomous serpent. In an effort to be edgy and cool, they’ve ended up with something tacky and cheap, a name best suited for an Arena Football team.