TOP 10 NAME CANDIDATES FOR THE NEW OKLAHOMA CITY NBA TEAM

by DMtShooter, Five Tool Tool

According to the World Wide Lemur's Bad Tooth podcast, the current leading candidates for the new name are the Barons, Thunderbirds, Thunder and Outlaws. I'd go into why all of these suck canal water, but that should all be obvious from just, well, reading them. So in our continual site mission statement of Making It Better, here are some better options, all of which are actual plural nouns, the way that God intended.

10. Bombers. Works well for three-point shooting and honors the memory of the city's best known transient, Timothy McVeigh. Besides, with the Bullets becoming the Wizards, the Association has a real need for an old-school aggro name.

9. Runners. Kind of a cousin to the Sooners, but with more of a basketball feel. Also a sideways glance at the team's non-specified Seattle history.

8. Kicks. The town is on the famed Route 66, which really needs to be re-recorded as an unfortunate hip hop track... because I'm thinking that the Nat King Cole original won't really work out.

7. Transients. Think of the old-school hobo logos, the fantastic differentiation from every other franchise, and the built-in excuse for when the team tanks. I'll also gladly take Railway Hobos here, though that would be a ridiculously long name.

6. Hornets. Look, the New Orleans team should be the Jazz. The Utah team should be the Choir, or the Bees (Utah has a ton of them), or the Special Underwears. And until someone forces the issue, it's not going to get fixed. The NOOCH experience is the reason why Oklahoma City has a team; honor it.

5. Drillers. Works for the town's oil history, is a common basketball verb, and is a perfect double-entendre experience for when the team suffers its first paternity scandal. Just hire Shawn Kemp to advise, and the headlines write themselves.

4. Blackjacks. It's a club, a card game, and a popular indigenous tree. It also sets up the franchise for their next carpetbagger move in five years to Vegas. Think ahead here, people.

3. Beavers. Three large lakes and many dams belie the town's more or less dust-choked land-locked feel, and it also leads itself to an astounding amount of 12-year-old boy giggles and ironic merch purchases. Besides, kids love beavers, and you can get Jerry Mathers to show up. (He's available.)

2. Twisters. The town has been hit by more tornadoes than any other US metro area, partly because the metro area is very large, and most of the Midwest doesn't have a metro area to get hit. It also lends itself to bad old dance numbers and a possible Tropicana sponsorship.

1. Thieves. It's what everyone will be thinking of them for at least the first ten years after the Seattle move, and it gives them kind of a bad guy Raiders vibe. Besides, getting steals is a good thing in basketball, and you could have the NBA's first sexy mascot (i.e., a girl in a catsuit).

Vote for your favorite, or add your own name candidate, in the comments...