Rumor: NBA Expected to Announce Expansion Teams in Seattle and Las Vegas

[Klomp]

Las Vegas Aces is a good name in that vein but it's taken

If Lebron is part of ownership group, they're gonna buy the rights to the Las Vegas Kings, haha.

They probably go for a unique name for trademarking.. notice how random a lot of NBA brands are: Lakers, Clippers, Knicks, Jazz, Supersonics, Heat for a few a examples.

I'd go with something like the Neon or the Viva

Lakers: The Laker nickname came from the state of Minnesota being the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

Clippers: San Diego team officials did not think "Braves" was a proper representative nickname for the club in San Diego, and a local naming contest ultimately decided on "Clippers", in reference to the city being known for the great sailing ships that passed through San Diego Bay.

Knickerbockers (shortened and more commonly referred to as the Knicks): Irish wanted a distinct name for his franchise that was representative of the city of New York. He called together members of his staff for a meeting to cast their votes in a hat. After tallying the votes, the franchise was named the Knickerbockers. The "Knickerbocker" name comes from the pseudonym used by Washington Irving in his book A History of New York, a name that became applied to the descendants of the original Dutch settlers of what later became New York, and later, by extension, to New Yorkers in general.

Supersonics: They named the team the SuperSonics after Boeing's recently awarded contract for the SST project, which was later canceled.

(Sources: Wikipedia)

[zimpy27]

If Lebron is part of ownership group, they're gonna buy the rights to the Las Vegas Kings, haha.

They probably go for a unique name for trademarking.. notice how random a lot of NBA brands are: Lakers, Clippers, Knicks, Jazz, Supersonics, Heat for a few a examples.

I'd go with something like the Neon or the Viva

Lakers: The Laker nickname came from the state of Minnesota being the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

Clippers: San Diego team officials did not think "Braves" was a proper representative nickname for the club in San Diego, and a local naming contest ultimately decided on "Clippers", in reference to the city being known for the great sailing ships that passed through San Diego Bay.

Knickerbockers (shortened and more commonly referred to as the Knicks): Irish wanted a distinct name for his franchise that was representative of the city of New York. He called together members of his staff for a meeting to cast their votes in a hat. After tallying the votes, the franchise was named the Knickerbockers. The "Knickerbocker" name comes from the pseudonym used by Washington Irving in his book A History of New York, a name that became applied to the descendants of the original Dutch settlers of what later became New York, and later, by extension, to New Yorkers in general.

Supersonics: They named the team the SuperSonics after Boeing's recently awarded contract for the SST project, which was later canceled.

(Sources: Wikipedia)

Yeah I know they names had influence.

Random was the wrong word. By random I mean they aren't the sort of generic names that another sports team in the world might have. They are unique names.

Tigers, Lions, Sharks, Bears.. these are all generic names.

[Huskies1947]

They should do Vancouver over Vegas. Vegas is literally the strip and nothing else.

No one went to the games in Vancouver. They had their shot and they blew it. Vegas is a much better option

Ahh this is so far from the truth it's not even funny. I know their existence was short lived so you don't get the "Seattle deserves a team" stigma.

Truth is the original owners did not have the deep pockets to continue to own the Grizzlies and Canucks so he sold the teams to an American company who only really wanted the Canucks. They tried to sell the Grizzlies to the St Louis Blues owner and the NBA rejected it because they did not want the team to move. In comes Micheal Heisley, who similar to Clay Bennett in Seattle, gave the NBA lip service and even sang the Canadian National anthem when he bought the team. It was all BS as he planned on relocating the team to the US. There was a group trying to buy it back from him and the original owner was livid but it was too late.

The market was never the issue for the NBA the attendance was not even bad considering how god awful the team was.

Watch on YouTube

David Stern said it was biggest regret, Adam Silver also wishes they didn't move and from his mouth (the video above) he does think the market can support the team. But I get it Americans have no love for Vancouver. Even if a Canadian invented the game.

[kodo]

They probably go for a unique name for trademarking.. notice how random a lot of NBA brands are: Lakers, Clippers, Knicks, Jazz, Supersonics, Heat for a few a examples.

The Lakers aren't a random name, it comes from Minnesota... land of the lakes. LAC used to be near San Diego bay area, and a clipper is a sailing ship. The Utah Jazz moved there from New Orleans. I'm sure the others have their own meanings too.

Also the Supersonics is based off the area's main industry at the time being Boeing.

I'm pretty sure all team names have a reason and none are random. Well, maybe the Raptors.