19 Days Until Sixers: Nicknames

I ache for the days of old-timey sports, particularly baseball, in which bitchin' nicknames were bestowed on athletes. Nicknames like Chocolate Thunder, Fat Freddie and Penitentiary Face. This was before Kevin Durant, the second-best player in the NBA, tried to get the nickname "The Servant" to stick on himself. That might be the worst nickname in the history of nicknames, the product of a whitewashed, corporate homogenization of man and, perhaps, the death of creativity in our society.

Fuck that noise, I say. ESPN currently lists 20 players on the Sixers' roster, and I'm going to give all of them nicknames. Some of them might have nicknames already, and some of the nicknames I come up with might be stupid. I don't care.

• Michael Carter-Williams-"Magic Mike"
  Even though I'm not a fan of "MCW," I don't think anything will replace it, so I'm mailing this one in. Good start.
• Brandon Davies-"Lithium"
  Because the sex jokes have run their course. Like lithium, Davies makes me less depressed and is also a key component in batteries, which is nice, because the only thing he does well is take a charge.
• Joel Embiid-None
  He's doing just fine without a nickname.
• Drew Gordon-"Drew Gooden"
  Every single time something's been written about Drew Gordon and the Sixers, I've read his name as "Drew Gooden." I don't think anything is ever going to change that, so let's just steer into the spin.
• Jerami Grant-"Jam"
  Makes perfect sense both as a nickname for Jerami and as what you'd want your forwards to do a lot of.
• Chris Johnson-"Bulldog"
  Because Chris Johnson is as generic a name for an athlete as "Bulldog" is for a team.
• Malcolm Lee-"Chaos Theory"
  In homage to Dr. Ian Malcolm of Jurassic Park. Other acceptable nicknames in this vein include "Black Leather Pants."
• Luc Richard Mbah a Moute-"Balloon Buster"
  After legendary WWI flying ace Frank Luke.
• K.J. McDaniels-"Orange Pants"
  He went to Clemson--he's got to own at least one pair.
• Arnett Moultrie-"Snakeskin"
  Another multifaceted sobriquet. Snakes shed their skin when they get bigger, which recalls Moultrie's inability to stay in shape. You'll also find that when on the court, Moultrie moves about as quickly as a discarded snakeskin. Finally, his last name sounds a lot like "molting," and nobody ever went wrong going for the cheap pun.
• Nerlens Noel-"Citicorp Center"
  Because, like the famous New York skyscraper, he's very tall, with a distinctive-looking roof and a base that was dangerously unstable before it was repaired.
• Jason Richardson-"Liberty Bell"
  Because he's older than the country and nobody in Philadelphia sees him that often, and when they do, they don't get that excited about it.
• Ronald Roberts-"The Bayonne Bomber"
  Though for the record, I'm totally cool with calling him "Ron Rob" forever.
• JaKarr Sampson-"The Wizard"
  Because his name sounds kind of like "Jafar," like from Aladdin...listen, guys, I'm doing my best.
• Alexey Shved-"Glavny Protivnik"
  Russian for "principal adversary." I know about 35 words in Russian, the overwhelming majority of which come from espionage novels.
• Henry Sims-"Exorcist Steps"
  Tall, scary, and from Georgetown.
• Hollis Thompson-"Shades of Death Highway"
  One day, all of you will understand.
• Casper Ware-"Sweet Talk"
  This nickname was the one that kicked off the whole series. There's a musician named Jessie Ware, who has nothing whatsoever in common with Casper, apart from her surname, but she's got a song called "Sweet Talk" that sounds like an undersized point guard looks, and even if it didn't, "Sweet Talk" would be a great nickname anyway.
  
  
• Elliot Williams-"Waste Land"
  A nod to legendary poet T.S. Eliot, and you can't tell me "Waste Land Williams" doesn't just feel good to say.
• Tony Wroten-"Three-Quarter Court Tony"
  We need to recognize that last year, Wroten shot a higher percentage from beyond midcourt than he did between the three-point line and midcourt.