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Sure, it’s a blatant merchandising grab, but we’ve been pretty excited about the idea of Miami Heat players wearing special-edition nickname jerseys. We’ve already received news that Ray Allen would wear “J. Shuttlesworth” and that LeBron would sport “King James,” but today the team unveiled the full list of nicknames.
#34 Ray Allen – J. Shuttlesworth
#11 Chris Andersen – Birdman
#50 Joel Anthony – Doc
#31 Shane Battier – Battle
#8 Michael Beasley – B Easy
#1 Chris Bosh – CB
#15 Mario Chalmers – Rio
#30 Norris Cole – Cole Train
#40 Udonis Haslem – UD
#6 LeBron James – King James
#22 James Jones – JJ
#9 Rashard Lewis – Sweet Lew
#21 Roger Mason, Jr. – Moneymase
#20 Greg Oden – G.O.
#3 Dwyane Wade – D. Wade
A couple of surprises here. Battier apparently originally wanted to go with “Battman” but was told there might be copyright issues, so he settled for “Battle.” Quite a few players just go the initials route, which is sort of disappointing in the case of Udonis Haslem and Chris Bosh. Haslem is known as “the Mayor,” which is a perfectly fine nickname. We can at least understand, though, why Bosh didn’t want to go with something like “Bostrich.”
Dwyane Wade surprisingly went with the simple “D. Wade,” despite having a plethora of nicknames, including “Flash” and “MV3.” He even gave himself a new nickname earlier this year — “W.O.W.” — which he claimed meant “Way of Wade.” LeBron thought it was corny, though, so Wade apparently retreated.
We’re also supersad that Michael Beasley didn’t go with “Super Cool Beas.”
You can buy the jerseys starting at $75 apiece. The Heat players will wear the Jerseys this Friday against the Brooklyn Nets.
