NEWSLETTER
Major League Baseball is in the midst of its #PlayersWeekend, an event where athletes sport specialty jerseys with their nicknames plastered on the back and have all sorts of accessorizing fun. Fun, I know, right!?
Check it out:
We'll try to get these dirty.#PlayersWeekend pic.twitter.com/4PmDgvPMQ9
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) August 23, 2019
https://twitter.com/KNegs17/status/1165000332289536005
https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1164920807669284864
.@ItsbuccnJoe59’s glove is inevitable. #PlayersWeekend pic.twitter.com/vsQo6ZgIpz
— MLB (@MLB) August 23, 2019
Watching these cool uniforms and accessories take the field led me to ask why the NBA doesn’t do the same thing. For a league that is always trying out alternate uniforms, I’m surprised we haven’t seen more teams run onto the court like this.
We had a glimpse of nickname jerseys in the NBA when the Brooklyn Nets and Miami Heat received permission to do so on in 2014, and it was pretty awesome. LeBron James got to wear a “King James” jersey and Kevin Garnett had “The Big Ticket” front and center. I’m amazed that with all of the cool NBA nicknames out there that we haven’t seen this pop up again. The Association’s best nicknames include Ice Trae, Spida Mitchell, The Joker, Greek Freak, The Beard, Boogie, Uncle Drew, Chef Curry, and Swipa … and those are just some off the top of my head!
The Bulls, specifically, have a player with one of the best nicknames in the game with Lauri Markkanen being known as The Finnisher.
Yeah, the NBA has WAY better nicknames than MLB. Don’t @ me.
So with a new season approaching, let’s take a look at what could be on the back of the other player’s jerseys:
Note: I marked the nicknames I had to come up with on my own with an asterisk. Not bad, eh? Everyone else either had nicknames posted on Basketball-Reference or somewhere on the inter-webs.
By no means is this a definitive list, but it’s a starting point.
Writing these out also made me realize we should definitely keep a list of all Stacey King nicknames this season (since he’s elite at creating them). Who wants to be in charge of that? Me? Great!
Anyway, it’s time for Commissioner Adam Silver to get on this nickname bandwagon and bring it to the NBA.
