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Zach Lowe ranks Utah "Jazz" as 6th best team name.

Beantown

Beantown

Well-Known Member
Not too bad. I will take it.
6. Utah Jazz

You don't have to shout the history at me. We all know it. Without even getting into demographics, race, and religion, we can just say Salt Lake City has never been a hotbed of jazz music. The franchise started as the New Orleans Jazz, a seamless marriage of name and city. Ownership held on to the name upon moving to Salt Lake City, even though just about any other name would have made more sense.

It matters only a little. The Jazz is a very nearly perfect name for a basketball team. The basketball-as-jazz thing has been a bit overdone, but it still works. Both involve ensembles playing off each other in sequences that fall in the large gray area between "totally scripted" and "100 percent improvised."2 Players/musicians make reads based on feel in the moment, and they allow each member of the group to thrive at the right time. The goal is to develop deep connections between teammates, push the boundaries of creativity, and raise the collective to a higher spiritual level than any member could reach on his or her own.

And drawing the "J" in "Jazz" as a musical note, with a multicolored basketball where the circle in the note would be? That might be the nicest bit of logo art in the NBA. That's a grace note.

If you think this ranking is high based on the ridiculousness of naming a team in Utah the "Jazz," think about where it might be without that cognitive dissonance.
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https://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9581986/the-definitive-guide-nba-team-names-part-ii
 
UGLI baby said:
Agree with him on the jazz note.

So badass.


This post brought to you by UGLI baby
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I've been wanting to buy a Jazz note shirt for quite some time. But I was too lazy to search for online sports shop. And I don't know how the sizes are. Sometimes a L is an XL in other shirts and vice versa.
 
I really don't get it why people bother so much about the Jazz name in Utah. How many Bulls are in Chicago? How many Lakes or Clippers are in Los Angeles? How many wizards in Washington?

Anyway,I don't have a problem here in Brazil, when they mention NBA teams on TV or newspapers here, they call it most teams by the city/state name(Utah, Miami, Orlando, Houston etc.)
 
thebrazilianzz said:
I really don't get it why people bother so much about the Jazz name in Utah. How many Bulls are in Chicago? How many Lakes or Clippers are in Los Angeles? How many wizards in Washington?

Anyway,I don't have a problem here in Brazil, when they mention NBA teams on TV or newspapers here, they call it most teams by the city/state name(Utah, Miami, Orlando, Houston etc.)
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I read once that the Bulls name is connected with Chicago being a place where loads of cattle were traded. could err on that since I didn't check.
Los Angeles is located at the ocean, so Clippers isn't that inappropriate imo. I know they're a relocation team, so I'm not sure where the name is from. I guess though that has LA a huge harbour.
Lakers were originally from Minnesota, they just did it the Jazz way and sticked to their franchise name.
 
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Correct re: Chicago. It had the largest stock yards in the world at some point.
Clippers were originally in San Diego. The name makes sense there. It isn't too bad in LA either.
 
The Utah Jazz is a name that rings bells.
Say it 10 times, you'll be like, "damn, it still sounds badass after saying it ten times straight."
 
https://espn.go.com/sportsnation/story/_/id/9554965/uni-watch-power-rankings-rates-nba-uniforms-1-30

Dont know if this has been posted before.. Some list that ranked Jazz' jersey as 4th best in the league.

The Jazz have now been in Utah for 34 years (longer than you realized, right?), and they've never looked better than they do right now. Sure, the team name is a bit incongruous, but nobody complains about the Lakers' or Dodgers' names, even though there are no lakes to swim in or trolleys to dodge in L.A. So forget about the Jazz's name and just dig the excellent threads.
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But the guy who made this list also says that Jazz name is incongorous with the city but who gives a ****? Phonetically "Utah" and "Jazz" words matching really well with each other. It sounds really good.
 
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