UPDATE: Dwyane Wade out because of knee “soreness.”
At some point tonight Cole Train could blow by Jet, King James could go all royalty over the Truth, Birdman could swoop in for a rebound over Plums and JJ could be covering JJ.
The Heat and Nets will unveil the NBA’s newest marketing gimmick, nickname jerseys. The choice of names was the players, although they had to pass the trademark and taste test.
The Heat have several players who are not allowed to use trademarked names such as Flash (Dwyane Wade), Super Mario (Mario Chalmers) and Batman (Shane Battier). Instead, Wade is D.Wade, Chalmers is Rio and Battier is Battle, his family name before it was changed when his father joined the Army.
Wade, though, will not play because of “soreness.” He played four games in the last six days. Wade has now missed eight games, seven because of the maintenance program for his knees and one with the flu.
And the league frowned on Nets forward Andrei Kirilenko using AK-47. Kirilenko selected his name in Cyrillic lettering.
Some of the names are obvious: King James (LeBron James), Birdman (Chris Andersen), CB (Chris Bosh), The Big Ticket (Kevin Garnett), Truth (Paul Pierce), Jet (Jason Terry).
And then there is Ray Allen’s jersey, which will read J. Shuttlesworth, the character Allen portrayed in the 1998 film, He Got Game.
Miami’s James Jones and New Jersey’s Joe Johnson both are JJ.
All 15 players from both teams have jerseys. The Heat are selling the Name Collection jerseys online.
The Heat also will wear the nickname jerseys Jan. 21 against the Celtics and April 8 against the Nets.
Here is the complete list for tonight’s game:
Heat
Ray Allen: J. Shuttlesworth
Chris Andersen: Birdman
Joel Anthony: Doc
Shane Battier: Battle
Michael Beasley: B Easy
Chris Bosh: CB
Mario Chalmers: Rio
Norris Cole: Cole Train
Udonis Haslem: UD
LeBron James: King James
James Jones: JJ
Rashard Lewis: Sweet Lew
Roger Mason Jr.: MoneyMase
Greg Oden: G.O.
Dwyane Wade: D.Wade
Nets
Andray Blatche: Dray Live
Andrei Kirilenko: (name in Cyrillic lettering)
Alan Anderson: Double
Reggie Evans: Joker
Kevin Garnett: The Big Ticket
Joe Johnson: JJ
Shaun Livingston: S Dot
Brook Lopez: Brooklyn
Paul Pierce: Truth
Mason Plumlee: Plums
Tornike Shengelia: Tokomotiv
Tyshawn Taylor: Tee_Y
Mirza Teletovic: MT3
Jason Terry: Jet
Deron Williams: D-Will
New York not so super
James was asked before Thursday’s game against the Knicks if he will stay in New York to attend Super Bowl after Heat plays Knicks Feb. 1, the night before the game.
“I don’t want to be here for that,” he said. “It’s going to be so crowded here. It’s probably going to be cold as heck so I’m going back to Miami to some pretty decent weather.”
