The Lesser Known Nicknames of the NBA

Romy over at Hoop Heads North, put together a great post on the Lesser Known Nicknames of players from around the Association.  It’s really quite great, informative, and pretty hilarious.  I highly advise you all to check it out. He got contributions from 20 different bloggers covering 20 different NBA teams, which is really quite impressive!  Again, I can’t say enough how entertaining this post is.  I contributed some nicknames for various TWolves players from a Q & A that I did with Romy a few weeks back.  If you missed them the first time around, here they are again:

Ryan Gomes – Ryan “The Barometer” Gomes  (As Gomes go, so do the Wolves. If he is having a good game, there is an equally good chance the Wolves could win on any given night. If he is struggling and not playing well, it usually ends up in a Wolves loss)
Craig Smith – Craig “The Rhino” Smith (I’m not sure how legitimate this nickname is being that he gave it to himself; but everyone refers to him as “The Rhino.”)  CW EDIT 3/11/09: I’ve since been informed by a source inside the Wolves organization that McHale called Smith “Rhino” once inside his office, someone overheard and spread it around.  Great work spreading it around by whomever is responsible… the nickname seems to have legitimately stuck with Smith and is widely accepted.
Corey Brewer – Corey “Turbo” Brewer  (Apparently he looks exactly like a character from a movie (I forget the title) named “Turbo.” And honestly, the resemblance is uncanny. Plus, he’s really fast and typically looks like he was shot out of a cannon while out on the court.)
Kevin Love – “Da Angry Whopper” Love  (Your guess is as good as mine.)
Calvin Booth – “The Thief”  (Because he’s pretty much just stealing paychecks at this point.  This is obviously dated, but still hilarious.  Plus, I see no reason why this nickname wouldn’t transfer over to his tenure as a Sacramento King.)

Some of my personal favorite nicknames from the plethora of players that can be found in Romy’s article:

Jake Voskuhl – “Jake” (Pictured above)
Alexis Ajinca – “Freedom Fries”
DJ Mbenga – “Congo Cool”
Sean Williams – “SWat”
Tyson Chandler – “Ceiling Fan Repair Man”  (Last season, Jannero Pargo said Tyson Chandler would be a “Ceiling Fan Repair Man” if he wasn’t in the NBA.)
Julian Wright – “Giraffe Calf”
Kevin Durant – “Durantula”
Nenad Krstic – “Krispy Nads”
Robin Lopez – “Fropez”
Sam Dalembert – “Sam Dumbert/Dalembum”
Marreese Speights – “Ace of Speights,” or “Speighterman”
Joel Przybilla – “The Vanilla Gorilla”
Rudy and Sergio – “The Spanish Armada”
Nicolas Batum – “Batum Goes The Dynamite”
Fabricio Oberto – “O-Beardo”
Oleksiy Pecherov – “Big Oily,” or “The White Hole“
Beno Udrih – “Tazmanian Slovenian”

…and this made me literally laugh out loud:

Rashad McCants – “McTenacity”