Saturday, November 04, 2006

Gettin' Back To Lovetron

Dunk You Very Much

Now that I'm sortin' out the NBA, whatever happened to cool, old skool NBA player nicknames? Other than Shaq's 'Diesel' and 'The Daddy,' nicknames have gone out of style in the league. Chick Hearn must be spinning in his grave.

You've got to go back to the 70's and 80's to get the classics.

George Gervin was the "IceMan," Julius Erving was "Dr J," James Worthy was "Big Game James," Charles Barkley was "The Round Mound of Rebound," and Jerry West was "Zeek From Cabin Creek" and "Mr. Clutch."

You had Hakeem "the Dream" Olajuwon and Clyde "the Glide" Drexler who both played for the University of Houston "Phi Slamma Jamma" teams before they got to the NBA. You had "Downtown Freddy Brown" jacking up treys before they counted as treys.

Daryl Dawkins even gave nicknames to his dunks. The two best? Get Out of the Wayin', Backboard Swayin', Game Delayin' Jam and Chocolate Thunder Flyin', Victory Denyin', Little Babies Cryin', Backboard Glass Flyin' I Am Jam! When asked where he went to school before getting to the NBA he claimed he was from "The Planet Lovetron."

I mean, back in the early 80's Lloyd Free actually changed his real name to "World B. Free," which has gotta be my favorite NBA name of all time.

The league changed the rules recently to restrict defenses so we'll get fan pleasing 70's and 80's style scoring orgies once again. While they're at it, why not bring back the nicknames too?

Plenty of good material to work with out there. Where are the clever sportswriters and sportscasters when you need 'em? We need you more than ever, Chickie Baby....

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Off thread I know, sorry, but did you see Frank Schaeffer's column today about leaving the Republican Party? It is worth reading .....
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-schaeffer_01edi.ART.State.Edition1.3eab2ff.html

6:04 PM  

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