If you're an NBA player on the road, staying at a hotel under your real name can be problematic. It can lead to anything from fans hounding you for an autograph to malevolent locals setting off stink bombs near your room. It's much safer to use an alias.
Enter Deadspin, which claims to have obtained the alias list from the Oklahoma City Thunder's stay at the Four Seasons in Houston before Game 1 of their first-round playoff series. Keep in mind that this has in no way been verified, but it's a good distraction during the intense playoff grind.
The longer top column is presumably for coaches and team personnel -- you can see names that appear to be those of head coach Billy Donovan and assistants Mo Cheeks and Mark Bryant.
But the shorter column below is where the fun starts -- seemingly a list of the players' aliases, including a lot of fictional characters. A few of the best ones:
- Crash Bandicoot (Legendary video game character)
- Walter White (Breaking Bad)
- Tony Stark (Iron Man)
- Jeffrey Lebowski (I think you can figure this one out)
- Marty Funkhouser (Curb Your Enthusiasm)
Some players elected to go with living, breathing human beings as their aliases, including comedians Chris Rock and Chris Tucker, along with the curious selection of current FAU football coach Lane Kiffin.
Lane Kiffin? Really?
If this is indeed the true list that the Thunder used, the players' selections probably say a lot about their personalities -- or at least their taste in movies or comedy.
