Best and Worst NBA Team Names That Are No More

The Charlotte Bobcats moniker is about to be a thing of the past, and all I can say is “Thank God for that!”

That nickname was the absolute worst. According to Deadspin, former owner Bob Johnson named the team after himself. If that is true, aside from being incredibly narcissistic to name a basketball club after yourself, naming a sports team after a person is absolutely asinine.

Animals are cool (Bulls, Grizzlies, Timberwolves), local themes are better (Celtics, Pistons, Trail Blazers) and creativity trumps all (Knicks, Cavaliers, Pacers). People? Not so much.

Nobody is going to root for the Charlotte Jordans, Brooklyn Jay-Z’s (when he was the part owner) or the Minnesota Schrei-Guys (a poor fantasy name I had one year).

Basketball fans in Charlotte need not worry, however, the NBA has a history of poor team names. It also has some pretty sweet ones that should never have gone away.

The following are four of my favorite names that are no more and four team names that never should have happened in the first place.

Best Names: Seattle SuperSonics

Bring them back! Just expand the league, bring back the Vancouver Grizzlies while you’re at it to create a natural rivalry, rename the Memphis Grizzlies the Blues (it’s a repeat name, but so is the Jets, Panthers, Rangers, etc.) and voila, one of basketball’s biggest hotbeds gets their team back.

Besides being on the NBA-to-Seattle bandwagon, I just love the moniker.

The SuperSonics worked even though it was originally named after Boeing’s SST Project, which was later cancelled. It reminded me of SEGA’s Sonic the Hedgehog (who is one of the coolest video game characters) and the Space Needle looks like something that would send out supersonic signals anyways.

Seattle should have a basketball team. Creative names should never go to waste. So let’s make this happen!

Worst Names: Charlotte Bobcats

I liked the Hornets: I loved the color scheme, hornets are badass because their sting hurts so bad and Muggsy Bogues is one of my favorite short people of all time.

It’s unfortunate that when the team moved to New Orleans that they could not have stolen Utah’s name using a “this used to be ours” clause. The New Orleans Jazz makes a lot more sense than the Utah Jazz.

Utah could have become the Blizzard, Freeze or Mormons. All three make a lot more sense. The Jazz had snow-capped mountains on their old jerseys for crying out loud! Nobody plays jazz on the top of a snow-capped mountain!

Anyways, the New Orleans team is now the Pelicans, and the Charlotte team is going to be the Hornets (instead of the Bobcats) and, for the most part, all is right in the world.

Best Names: Dallas/Texas Chaparrals

In no way am I suggesting that the San Antonio Spurs should change their name back to the Chaparrals, the moniker they used during the team’s early days in Dallas.

The Spurs are a brand. They are one of the only, if not the only, successful NBA organizations that is not only not located in a major city like New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, but have won in a one-team town. (I hesitate to call them small-market since San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in America).

The Mavericks could use a change, however, now that the word maverick is associated with Sarah Palin and the state of Alaska. Originally chosen as a reference to a TV Western that ran in the 1950’s, the name is a little outdated and nowhere near as cool as the Chaparrals.

A chaparral is either a plant used in Native American medicine, a U.S. Army surface to air missile or the Stanford University humor magazine. Choose your pick.

Whatever it is, it’s better than a maverick.

Worst Names: Washington Bullets

A nod to the ABA’s Baltimore Bullets, the franchise's name was changed to the Wizards in 1997. Owner Abe Pollin was shaken by the death of his friend Yitzhak Rabin, an Israeli Prime Minister who was assassinated in 1996. Compounded with the fact that D.C. had one of the highest crime rates in America, he decided to drop the moniker.

The original name was actually a reference to the bullet trains in Baltimore, as well as a munitions factory, but regardless of where it began, the word bullet is reasonably associated with violence and therefore dropped. It became the only major professional team other than the Houston Colt .45s to change their name without relocating.

The team has recently changed their uniforms back to the old Bullets color scheme and has also floated the idea of changing the name back.

The former is something I’m all for. The latter? Not so much.

Best Names: Chicago Packers

Yes, I’m using the same franchise twice, but for this name, it is absolutely worth it.

That’s right, the Washington Wizards used to be the Chicago Packers. The name is a reference to the meat packers on Chicago’s south side, not the kind of packers Michael Bolton is referring to in Office Space.

The name is great because it combines two rival football teams, the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears, but unfortunately, management quickly renamed them the Chicago Zephyrs to combat low attendance at the games.

Worst Names: Memphis Tams

Personally, I like this name. People in college called me Tam because my Minnesota accent made my “O’s” sound like “A’s.”

On a more universal note, however, this name is terrible.

Memphis’ original professional basketball team, the one they didn’t steal from Vancouver, was called the Memphis Pros, and for obvious reasons, that had to change.

When new management bought the Pros, they decided they wanted to create a broader fanbase so they decided to call them the Tam’s—an acronym that stands for Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi.

This name clearly did not stick and was later changed to the Sounds.

Best & Worst Names: San Diego Conquistadors

Like the Tams, this name was eventually changed, and like the Bullets, it’s because it had offensive connotations.

Conquistadors in a vacuum sounds absolutely sweet. It’s a long word with plenty of vowels and a saucy Spanish twist to it.

The team also could have saved money and just stolen the old Tampa Bay Buccaneers logo and worn Popsicle orange uniforms. That kind of stuff doesn’t fly in the hyper-masculine NFL, but in the flamboyant NBA, that color scheme would have passed with, ahem, flying colors.

Unfortunately the real conquistadors spread disease all over the world and mass-murdered a bunch of people, so using that as a mascot probably isn’t a good call.

Worst Names: Toronto Raptors

Originally named after the 1993 film Jurassic Park, which was cool in the 1990’s and that’s about it, the Vince Carter-led Toronto—[Is informed that the name Toronto Raptors is still in use]—excuse me, for some reason Canada’s professional basketball team is still called the Raptors.

Seriously, though, who had the lack of foresight when they named this team? By that logic, why don’t you just call them the Toronto Wiggins? Like, hmm, which Canadian-born player are they hoping to get in next year’s draft?

In all seriousness, though, they should just rename the team the Toronto Maple Leafs. It would be a classic bait and switch: Nobody would know which team they were going to see. You’d have a whole bunch of Canadians in Leafs sweaters wondering why the dasher boards were not set up yet only to see a basketball team run out onto the court.

I don’t mean to hate on the Raptors. The mascot is sweet and the old uniforms were great, but now that they, like the Houston Rockets, changed to bland jerseys, why not change the name to something else? It has been considered, and it would be fun to see what the fans come up with.

Conclusion

Just because I want you to know, these are the changes I’d make to the current NBA:

Charlotte Hornets (It’s gonna happen anyways.)

Dallas Chaparrals (A much better name.)

Memphis Blues (Sounds, Vibes…I don’t care, not Grizzlies.)

New Orleans Jazz (Not the damn Pelicans, especially with those awful jerseys.)

Seattle SuperSonics (Bring them back!)

Toronto Hogs (The city’s nickname is Hogtown. Scorpions or Tarantulas would also be cool. All three were original suggestions when the team came into the league.)

Utah Avalanche (Eff it…the Kings use a hockey name too.)

Vancouver Grizzlies (Admit it: They were cool. You probably have a hat or know somebody that does.)

Some of the old names were sweet. Others were bad. In general, though, the NBA has plenty of fun names to go around otherwise.

Tom Schreier covers Minnesota sports for Bleacher Report and is a contributor to Yahoo! Sports.

Follow @tschreier3