By now you’ve heard that the NBA filed for trademarks to 6 possible names for the new Oklahoma City basketball team: Barons, Bison, Energy, Marshalls, Thunder and Wind. My initial reaction was BWAHAHAHHA!

First of all, I absolutely hate team names that come in the singular form. You never know if you should say “the Heat are…” or “the Heat is…” It’s also gimmicky and amateurish. This isn’t the NBDL or the WNBA.

With that said, at least we’re saved from the misnomer created by NBA teams taking their old team names to new cities, like the Lakers, Jazz, Hornets, etc. Well, not like “Seattle Supersonics” ever really made any sense.

Energy, Thunder and Wind are horrible, horrible names. Bison is pretty bad, but at least I kind of associate bison with the frontier and OKC. My vote would be for Barons over Marshalls — Barons is slightly cooler, if only because it would be one of the highest-flying team names (2nd to the Suns). We’ve never had any plane names.

Marshalls loses because of the inevitable association with the discount-clothing store and/or Marshall Hao. Besides, you can’t have a marshall without a gun, and you can’t have guns associated with NBA teams, like the Bullets proved.

What should the OKC team be named?