The promise shown by Oklahoma City’s young talent nucleus (Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Jeff Green and, possibly, James Harden) combined with the ongoing outrage aimed at team owner Clay Bennett for hijacking the franchise from Seattle has, for the most part, moved the comedy of errors that is the team’s name and logo to the backburner.
No longer.
Let’s start with the name. Obviously, nonplural sports team names are dumb. The Jazz are probably the closest to not being cringe-inducing, but it’s still unpalatable to say. Even worse is reading the variation in subject/verb agreement when nonplural teams are discussed in written form. Logically, the Jazz, Heat and Magic should all be treated as plural nouns just like the Celtics, Lakers and Bulls. By the rationale of context, they should become like deer, moose or fish in that the singular and plural forms are the same word. “The Magic ARE on a four-game win streak,” for instance, not “The Magic IS on a four-game win streak.” Still, two decades after Orlando and Miami entered the League, there is no consistency, and you will see the names handled differently depending on the publication.
Moreover, even for a nonplural, the name Thunder is just weak. Dogs and 12-year-old girls are the only things scared of thunder. Lighting is a little scary, sure. It can kill you. But loud noises are not intimidating. There are certainly thousands of other nouns that Oklahoma City could have chosen that would have been better, but, for my money, the Oklahoma City Outlaws would have been the ideal choice.
See, the only two things Oklahoma is widely known for is being the title of a simple musical I was forced to watch in elementary school and being the nickname for the notorious gunslinger The Oklahoma Kid, who was played by bonafide tough guy James Cagney in the 1939 film of the same name. (It should be noted that legendary badass Humprey Bogart starred in the film as well.) Throw in the alliteration benefit and calling a team the Oklahoma City Outlaws is a no-brainer.
Then all you have to do to have a great new franchise is steal the phenomenal Arizona Outlaws logo from the defunct USFL. But that would have been way too easy, I guess. Instead, the powers that be in OKC opted for a lame name and a logo that looks more fitting of an internet browser. Or worse, a WNBA team.
This doesn’t belong on a jersey. It belongs on a KFC Famous Bowl.
Known Associates:
Arizona Outlaws,
Clay Bennett,
Durant,
Heat,
James Harden,
Jazz,
Jeff Green,
KFC Famous Bowls,
Magic,
Oklahoma!,
Patton Oswalt,
Russell Westbrook,
The NBA Logo Ranking Project,
The Oklahoma Kid,
Thunder,
USFL
Normally, I respect your precious time way too much to just dump a bunch of links to the least-worst crap I happened to find during the day so that I can pretend that I did something productive. If I can’t find the time to include at least some poor attempt at personal insight or mediocre comedy along with a mention of the notable thing I came across, then what exactly is my purpose here anyway? It’s easy, lazy, boring and, worst of all, unoriginal.
But with this Finals looking like it could possibly be over by Friday morning early next week, we really are beginning to run out of time before the summer NBA fan hibernation turns this place into even more of a barren wasteland than usual. And I would be remiss if I never got around to sharing a few of the particularly dope things that have transpired of late. (Plus, I have two other “important things” I really need to devote some time to if I want to get them up before the Finals end.)
So with the full admission that I’m failure of epic proportions who is now parroting the format of other people, I present you with the following list of “The Top Twenty-Five NBA-Related Things That You Really Should Check Out Regardless Of The Fact That I Am More Qualified To Eat a KFC Famous Bowl Than I Am To Run A Worthwhile Blog About The Association.”
Obviously, a lot of the stuff on the other end of these links are long-form articles or podcasts, so there is no way you can absorb it all in one sitting. But most of the more time-consuming stuff is not only worth coming back to when you have more time but will also still be just as relevant a month from now as it is today.
- Bill Simmons did two great NBA podcasts of late. Listen to them both. Here’s the one with Mark Cuban from forever ago (although it’s not really about the Playoffs so it has a long shelf life) and the one with Jerry West from last week. As inconsistent as Sports Guy’s writing has become in recent years, he has been pretty good when it comes to hoops during these Playoffs and I fully expect his upcoming, 720-page Book of Basketball to be a classic.
- Stan Van Gundy articulates the rationale behind some of his coaching decisions.
- Learn how you can “Dress Like an NBA Finals Participant.” (If you like this, you should also eagerly anticipate one of the two aforementioned “important things” I’m trying to finish up this week.)
- I don’t like to cast aspersions on a guy but Clippers owner Donald Sterling is a giant scumbag.
- Rik Smits is punk rock.
- The tragic story of how Trevor Ariza’s brother Tajh died by falling out of a hotel window.
- Grant Hill sells out his teammate Amare on Jimmy Kimmel’s NBA version The Dating Game. (Amare really should have followed that up by saying “Tamia.”)
- “FreeDarko Presents the Disciples of Clyde NBA Podcast” features the usual suspects plus JE Skeets of Ball Don’t Lie as they get meta about themselves as NBA writers while also rapping philosophically and spiting whimsically about the Association at large.
- Jack Nicholson disagrees with an official. (Also, he once posed for this.)
- The inimitable Kevin Pelton talks pick-and-rolls.
- Steve Nash will be reporting from Game 3 as the official Late Show with David Letterman correspondent. The segment will be on the show Wednesday night.
- Here’s one you should click on because I’m a huge Marcin Gortat fan and I want you to know what I’m talking about after I start referring to him solely as “The Big White Guy With The Jordan Tattoo.”
- ESPN The Mag’s in-depth feature on Chauncey Billups.
- NBA Team Name Jeopardy with Bethlehem Shoals. It’s a little harder than it should be. (While I’m being derivative, I should probably rip off this idea some day and do something longer form with it. Then again, I’m lazy and currently doing a Top 25 list of random crap…so who am I kidding? Remember this failure of over-ambition? I still pledge to re-visit this further someday, however. Though this “season preview” certainly died on the vine without another mention pretty much before it ever even started. Musta been whiskey binge week again.)
- Kenny Smith relives his glory days in the O-Rena.
- Wait? Is Vitamin Water mocking itself here?
- Dr. Jack Ramsey shows SVG how to draw up a real last-second lob play.
- Meanwhile, Stan Van Gundy wishes he had more players who were more highly skilled like those developed in Europe. Also, he looks like an ordinary guy.
- Lakers Origins: The Kareem Jacket
- AK-47 is on a jet-ski. Next to a pig. A spider pig? Impossible to say.
- Maybe it’s because I grew up in the boondocks and didn’t actually realize that local TV ads everywhere else are equally bad, but they are one of my favorite things ever. Thus, The Top 22 Pistons Commercials.
- Normally, I don’t really direct you towards college/draft-related stuff, but Holly MacKenzie sorta kilt it with her piece on Syracuse guard Johnny Flynn. (And here’s a more light-hearted Draft piece from FreeDarko.)
- You can never go wrong with the Ron Artest video blog. #17 is particularly great.
- Bill Bradley reviews Bill Russell’s book.
- Lastly, I always enjoy it when something from real life takes a slight detour into NBA-land so that I can mention it even though it’s barely relevant to anything I should be talking about on Both Teams Played Hard. And the first episode of Tosh 2.0 fortunately qualifies. See, I have been a huge Daniel Tosh fan since back when it was underground and he’s unquestionably in the inner sanctum of my favorite comics along with folks like Doug Stanhope, David Cross, Carlin, Mitch Hedberg and Lewis Black. Plus, I quote the dude fairly regularly around these parts and it would probably help out the accessibility of this site if more than like six of yall knew what the hell I was talking about in such instances. So it is great pleasure that I point out an off-hand LeBron mention in this Web Redemption: Afro Ninja piece and the Shaq reference he drops here. (You should also watch the entirely non-NBA-related intro segment as well.) Finally, he also did this joke on his CD “True Stories I Made Up,” which also has a pretty good rape-related line about Kobe as well.
“It’s about time this douchebag linked to something I’m doing since he’s been stealing my jokes for years.”
Known Associates:
Daniel Tosh,
KFC Famous Bowls,
Patton Oswalt
