I doubted Thomas potential as a long-term starter, but he's proven to be sensational. He's a little 5'9 buzzsaw of an all-star defying expectations nightly. Frankly, this guy should be one of the most popular players in the entire league. Everyone likes rooting for "the little guy", and Thomas literally is "the little guy". He's basically the face of one of the league's premiere franchises. He's got a huge personality and a massive game. He's only the 2nd player under 5'10 in history to make the all-star team (the other being Calvin Murphy in the forgotten 1970s). Spud Webb and Mugsy Bogues never made all-star teams. Thomas is the real deal.
He's got one big problem, though. It's that name. It's impossible for a casual basketball fan to hear the name "Isiah Thomas" and not think of the Bad Boy era Pistons or the woefully mismanaged New York Knicks. Our guy got that name, because his father lost a bet. I don't care how many extra "
itty bitty A's", they add to Is
Aiah's name, I'm still thinking of the Piston legend. I feel like even hardcore Celtic fans hesitate to fully embrace the guy based on his name. As fans who grew up loathing the 80s Pistons, the star of our team might as well be named Charles Manson.
How is it this guy doesn't have a proper nickname yet? What happened to the days of "Magic" and "Doctor J". It's a shame "Mighty Mouse" is already taken. How are we not calling this guy "Firecracker" or something? Who is this guy's agent? Isn't this impacting his ability to get endorsement deals? He's using a borrowed brand. There should be kids all over the nation rocking his kicks.
I don't know if this guy is religious, but seems to me now player in history could benefit more from some kind of "Kareem Ali" name change. At the very least, reach out to "Meta World Peace" and "He Hate Me"'s marketing teams to see if they have some ideas.
Even if he went the "Michael B. Jordan" route and started referring to himself as "Isaiah J. Thomas", it would be an improvement.
I'm certainly not the first to point this out. I just googled 'Isaiah Thomas nickname" and after about 5 results about Zeke (Pistons Isiah Thomas' nickname), I found this CelticLife article from last month on the same topic:
http://www.celticslife.com/2016/02/if-isaiah-thomas-needs-new-nickname.html Come on, people. Let's figure this out. Yeah, I get that some people refer to him as "IT4" or "Baby Iverson", but there's no consensus. Let's get on the same page here. Let's get all the Celtic-themed blogs involved. I suggest a cross-blog/cross-reddit vote. Let's do this right. Everyone should submit their suggestions... each blog should narrow it down to a few candidates, let's lump the top candidates all together in one blog-wide vote, and let's get our star a proper nickname. If his reps are too lazy to do it, put it in the hands of the fans. Pretty sure that's how the Toronto Raptors got their nickname. Hmmm... maybe this is a bad idea. Fine, Thomas can make the final call... but let's at least give him a consensus option.
Topic: We need to give Thomas a proper Nickname (Read 10386 times)