Oklahoma City's NBA Nickname

Yahoo! Sports is reporting that the NBA has filed for trademark rights for six nicknames for the former Seattle Supersonics franchise which starts play in Oklahoma City this fall. Disappointing doesn't begin to cover the choices which range from 'meh' to 'what the fuck are you thinking'.

In no particular order:

1) Marshalls- Hey, a great name, aside from the fact that it is spelled wrong. And not a cool misspelling (like 'extreme' as 'X-treem' or 'tacos' as 'tacoz') but with a double 'l' when only one is used. I'm sure the league will come up with a good explanation but my guess is, Oklahomans (?) don't know how to spell.

2) Barons- This gets a big old "depends" from The Bang. Are you talking about land barons? I could live with that. Its not the greatest nickname ever, but it will do. But then what is your mascot? Just a guy running around with the deed to some land? Do you think a Warrior, Knick or Heat would be afraid of a Land Baron? (The answer is no.)

Maybe they'd go with a Red Baron theme. Which is intimidating, but the Red Baron was the bad guy in WWI, so I'd have to vote against that as well. What about the Oklahoma City Aces? Then they could just have Snoopy as a mascot, although he's pretty busy selling MetLife right now.

3) Bison- Pretty sweet name if you ask me. It has ties to the region, It would strike fear in the hearts of most NBA mascots (except the Raptor). And, I'm no artist, but I bet you could come up with some pretty bad ass Bison art. It translates easily into a mascot to entertain the kids plus we've nearly wiped the species off the face of the earth. So we are "honoring" it by making it a mascot.

4) Thunder- Let's go with the one plus- kick ass thunder sound effects in the arena. The bad- Thunder is a sound and sound can't be a mascot. You can't put a sound on a t-shirt and sell it to people. You can't turn a sound into a mascot for the kids. Chances are the mascot is a cloud with a lightening bolt- in which case you should just be called The Lightening. Or it'll be a bison, in which case you should just be called The Thundering Herd. And, message to Oklahoma City- there is Thunder everywhere it is not something associated with Oklahoma.

5) Wind- Whoa! We got one worse than thunder? And you don't even get a nice sound effect from wind. You do, however, get great headlines:

Tight defense helps Celtics break Wind.

6) Energy- Jesus, did you guys have a pitch meeting Friday afternoon at 4:45? Or is this NBA mandated because they don't want Miami to have the stupidest nickname in the league?

WOO HOO! GO ENERGY!

HERE WE GO ENERGY HERE WE GO!

You're telling me nobody in the room could've come up with an actual "thing" to be the mascot? Just open up an old USFL guide! What about the Oklahoma City Wranglers?

"Check this out guys, it fits with Oklahoma and its actually a thing that can be depicted on t-shirts!"

"So, are you saying you don't like my idea for the Oklahoma City Energy."

"No, I'm going to put that in the 'maybe' pile with the Oklahoma City Water Works."

"Awesome! Thanks for considering it!"