Nickname jerseys could only happen in the NBA

Last night, news trickled out to NBA fans - admittedly desperate for any kind of off-season development to discuss - that the league might be doing a little experimenting with its jerseys next season. Not for the whole season, and not for every team, but rather for one trial game between the Brooklyn Nets and the Miami Heat, where the two teams would wear "nickname jerseys" - jerseys not boasting the names Wade, Allen or Pierce, but rather the likes of "Three," "Shuttlesworth" and "The Truth." 

The league has done nothing to make the plan official, but there's apparently been enough discussion of it for some of the Heat players to have sounded off on the idea already, including Allen/Shuttlesworth:

It shows growth in our league and it shows we do adapt to what's going on around us. Even though we're now men playing a kids' game, we still remember where we come from. Everybody had a nickname and it's a way to let the fans in a little bit more.

Allen's point is an astute one, even if it seems to imply that nicknames are sort of a new thing in the NBA, something with which The Big O and Wilt the Stilt and just about every other basketball player born before 1975 would probably take issue. But he's very right about two things: The nickname experiment, should it come to pass, does show a little flexibility and looseness that would probably make most professional sports leagues uncomfortable, and it's definitely something that the fans are gonna enjoy. 

More than any of the other Big Four sports, the NBA is a star and personality-driven league. The best players are on the court for a higher percentage of the game, they have more of an impact on each game's final outcome, and they aren't hidden behind helmets or hats. 

This isn't news to anyone, least of all to the league itself, who has done an excellent job in the David Stern era of marketing their stars, helping the brightest to cultivate their own brands, and showcasing both their talents and their personalities - through YouTube, All-Star Weekend and even various endorsement deals - in a way to make them more accessible and compelling to fans worldwide. 

And yes, nicknames are a very big part of the NBA star system. There's been nary a franchise player to come down the NBA pipeline in recent (and probably not-so-recent) memory that didn't inspire some sort of "We need a nickname for ______"-type discussion, even though the best ones usually evolve organically over the course of a career. 

I wrote an article last year ranking every nickname I could think of in the NBA; it got more comments than just about anything else I've ever written - hoops heads debating not just the nicknames I ranked, but reminding me of ones I'd forgotten, remembering older classics that were ineligible, suggesting ones that didn't even exist yet. 

For the NBA to recognize the importance of these nicknames during a marquee matchup between two of the league's likely best, definitely two of the most veteran-laden teams is to almost give the fans themselves a shoutout by validating the names they've familiarly referred to these athletes by for years and years. 

To see Paul Pierce wearing a jersey with "The Truth" on the back isn't just cool because it's funny and unexpected for a non-exhibition NBA contest. It's cool because it gives credit to Pierce for having earned the nickname with his decade-and-a-half of exceedingly undeniable play, and to the fans for keeping the appellation alive over that time span. 

And, of course, it's pretty funny. The potential for extreme, unforgettable ridiculousness at such a Nickname Bowl is considerable, especially for the players with no obvious nickname who will be forced to adapt ones that are either ill-fitting or laughably bland. 

Heat forward Shane Battier, for instance, has apparently already applied for "Batman" and been rejected on copyright grounds, which is hilarious for several reasons. He will instead be going as "Shaneo," which is even more hilarious for several additional reasons.

Meanwhile, the debate has already begun on Twitter as to which name each athlete should use, and to which they will be permitted. Can Andrei Kirilenko somehow get away with using his well-circulated but obviously controversial "AK-47" nickname? Will Mario Chalmers attempt some sort of "Super Mario" pun, or will he opt out with his lame "Rio" abbreviation? Will Chris Bosh acknowledge "Boshstrich"? Can we convince Joe Johnson to bring back the Armadillo Cowboy? Is the NBA really gonna be so cruel as to deny Brook Lopez his right to become a Marvel superhero for one night? 

All questions that will no doubt be endlessly discussed from now until the game actually tips, and the NBA is savvy enough to know it. In fact, it almost seems like a poor allocation of resources for them to allegedly debut this idea during a Heat-Nets matchup, a game that surely will not be lacking for drama or personal intrigue on its own. 

Maybe the experiment would be better deployed on a Suns-Bobcats game in January, one that could really use the shot in the arm. But then, it's probably not as much fun to endlessly pontificate over prospective nicknames for Shannon Brown and Ramon Sessions than it will be for the big names in the Heat-Nets contest, so perhaps it's better to give the idea a high-profile debut, and perhaps led it spread down to the lesser-nicknamed later. 

In any event, this is a good and fun way for the NBA to celebrate an aspect of league culture that fans take a great deal of interest and pride in, and one that it's hard to imagine any other sport being self-aware enough (and not too self-serious) to embrace. It may infuriate some of the more conservative fans and will probably inspire at least one or two hectoring columns about the death of class in the NBA and how Bill Russell and Jerry West would never have stood for this, but that'll just make it all the more amusing to the rest of us, who will be too busy trying to think of a quality nickname for Greg Oden to really notice anyway. Too bad The Big O is already taken, huh?