The Four Point Play: The NBA Nomenclature Edition

What better way to transfer the Rucker Park tradition of naming a player by his tendencies than to give the NBA's lesser-knowns the royal treatment. Typically, aliases come from on-court specialties or demeanor. But all the coolest nicknames come from qualities that could never be expressed in a basketball game alone. Rather than rewarding only star players whose signature moves easily birth an AKA, we, The Four Point Play, convene to issue names for the overlooked, underpaid players who make the league a wonderful place. Word to Kevin Love.

Rookie Gordon Hayward wishes he could leave the Draconian Jerry Sloan regime. Since his days at Butler, he's been pigeonholed as systematic, and that's the problem. What happened to just playing for fun, he wonders. The spirit of Spicoli is strong in him.

It's been a psychological roller coaster whirl for Nenad Krstic as he's adjusted to his role in the Oklahoma City Thunder parable. After reincarnating himself in the Bruiser Big Man role, and brawling his way to international notoriety, Nena is a conflicted twin of both smooth shooting big man and boorish foul merchant. He's outside of himself, writing his own story, and there's no clear end. Nenad Krstic a.k.a The Adaptation.
 

Talk about genre-bending. The Miami Heat season started out as drama, possibly even tragedy, then quickly turned to comedy and, finally, absurd satire of a championship season. Their 9-8 start enlivened already voluble critics, then a turn-around game at Cleveland began a 21 out of 22 game win stretch. Now LeBron is regularly dropping 35 points and numerous assists, while making a strong case for the MVP. Erik Spoelstra seems to be the only one able to accept the wild scenario without breaking stride, and has made himself just as likely a candidate for Coach of the Year, even with his glut of talent. (The Miami Heat is also the oldest team in the league.) With Erik Spoelstra as Enrique Iglesias...