What’s the Best Nickname in the NBA?

Nothing a little #NBANicknameMadness bracket can’t get to the bottom of…

Brandon Anderson
3 min readMar 21, 2017

It’s March, and that means we do brackets. Most of the NBA these days is filled with one-and-dones or guys that didn’t even make the NCAA tournament (looking at you, Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz) so they missed out on most of the March Madness fun. It’s time to give them their shot.

So what current NBA player has the best nickname? I took 64 of the best nicknames and put them into a bracket, so we’re about to find out.

A few simple eligibility rules:

  1. Nickname must be listed on Basketball Reference to be eligible. Sorry Mighty Mouse and J Crossover.
  2. Must be an actual nickname and not just the name we use for them. Trill is Willie Cauley-Stein’s legal middle name. And do you know Yogi Ferrell or Bebe Nogueira’s real first names? Didn’t think so.
  3. Must have played at least one minute this year. Sorry Psycho T and Boshtrich / Boshasaurus. And a fond farewell to Black Mamba, Big Ticket, Big Fundamental, and of course, Red Mamba.
  4. Initials or parts of names aren’t nicknames unless they’re really good. Try harder CP3 and PG-13.
  5. Bracket seeding is arranged by number of Google hits into four regions: Superstar, International Flair, Accurate Enough, and LOL Wut?!

Let’s Get Voting!!

Be sure to check @wheatonbrando on Twitter for all past voting.

FINAL FOUR

We have a winner… King James takes it!

SUPERSTAR REGION

INTERNATIONAL FLAIR REGION

ACCURATE ENOUGH REGION

LOL WUT?! REGION

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Brandon Anderson

Sports, NBA, NFL, TV, culture. Words at Action Network. Also SI's Cauldron, Sports Raid, BetMGM, Grandstand Central, Sports Pickle, others @wheatonbrando ✞