Points in the Paint

» August 17, 2009 2:17 PM | By Brandon Hoffman

HOOPWORLD’s Joel Brigham takes a look at the origins of each and every team name in the league. Brigham on Boston: “When Walter Brown decided to bring a professional basketball team to Boston in 1946 he had a tough time coming up with a team nickname. According to Celtics.com, Brown was having a discussion with a member of the Boston Garden’s publicity staff in which they threw around some relatively bad ideas like ‘Whirlwinds’ and ‘Unicorns’ before Brown came up with ‘Celtics,’ seemingly out of nowhere. There had been a barnstorming hoops team out of New York that went by that name in the 1920s, so he liked that it was a pre-established name in the basketball world, plus to this day Boston has the largest Irish population of any major city in the United States. Sixty-three years and seventeen championships later, that’s still the name they’re using. Hard to imagine Kevin Garnett in a Boston Unicorns jersey, right?”

At 48 Minutes of Hell, Timothy Varner has a good wrapup of the latest NBA players in international competition talk. Varner poses this question: “Should a player’s freedom to compete in international competition be contractually negotiated? Tony Parker’s basketball skill is an asset, it’s his product to sell. If Peter Holt wants exclusive rights to that product, he’ll have to pay for it. In this scenario, Tony Parker would get a salary bump in his next deal if he withdraws from international competition, but at the cost of a dream and, perhaps, the esteem of his countrymen.”

Tom Ziller remembers the 72-10 Bulls: “In the playoffs that year, Bulls opponents exceeded 100 points only three times in 18 games. The Magic, who that season had been the league’s third best offensive unit and had averaged 104.5 points per game, were held to an average of 85 points per game in a 4-0 sweep by the Bulls in the Eastern finals. In the NBA finals, the Sonics exceed 90 points once in six games. The Bulls did this all year!”

Indy Cornrows: “In total ticket revenue for 08-09, the Pacers netted an average of $484,105 per game, slotting them 26th in the league. Compared to the NBA’s top revenue team, the Pacers received under 25 percent of what the Lakers earn per game, which is a hearty $1.96 million. Therefore, in a full season the Pacers rake in $19.9 million from ticket revenue, while the Lakers pummel the league with an $80 million take at the gate in a full year. Only the Hawks, Bucks, Timberwolves and Grizzlies bring in less than the blue and gold.”