Five professional sports ideas that sucked.

Some people have informed me that the New Orleans Hornets of the NBA were going to get a name change to become the New Orleans Pelicans, which not only doesn't make sense, but a sports team is supposed to have a cool sounding name, and calling yourselves the Pelicans is probably the furthest thing away from cool. I hope Commissioner David Stern knows that this picture exists:

The only good idea to solve the problem, and it was posted on a meme site.

Now that we've solved that little problem, let's get to showcasing some professional sports ideas that sucked so hard that they made it onto this blog (not that it takes much to suck, but if they're really horrible, they'll make it onto this blog, trust me).

1. Every Portland Trail Blazers draft pick since the 1980s

The biggest mistake the Blazers have ever made was drafting Sam Bowie. They could have had just about everyone else in the draft. To be fair, they did lose the top draft pick, Hakeem Olajuwon, to a coin toss. But here's a list of people they could have picked:

God Tier: Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, John Stockton
Decent Tier: Sam Perkins, Otis Thorpe, Kevin Willis, Alvin Robertson

The Blazers often justified their selection of Bowie as a need-based selection, but Thorpe, Perkins and Willis could all play center (and Perkins played alongside Michael Jordan). Bowie has the distinction of being about as durable as a glass hammer, although his career stats were alright (but definitely not worthy a #2 overall pick). The Blazers eventually traded for Thorpe, but it was way too late, as the guys they traded away (Clyde Drexler and Tracy Murray) won a championship ring with the Houston Rockets in 1995.

The list of horrible Blazers draft picks goes on and on. The only good pick was Arvydas Sabonis in 1987, but he couldn't play for them until the 90s. Their only decent draft pick since then was Zach Randolph, who can't block despite playing power forward. Greg Oden and Brandon Roy were supposed to be good, but got hurt. Another good pick was LaMarcus Aldridge, who has found himself in my fantasy basketball teams every single season since his rookie year.

2. Naming your team Young Boys

This isn't a joke: there is a soccer (football) team named Young Boys in Switzerland. I wonder what kind of chants they come up with, since "We Love Young Boys" will probably get you arrested for pedophilia, and then end up going to prison and getting raped.

3. Mixing football and wrestling (XFL)

At the time, it didn't seem like such a bad idea. Football and wrestling together seemed like it would take manliness to heights it had never seen before. But the way it was executed was so horrendous that you might as well have mixed Diet Coke and Mentos in your own stomach. It lasted all of one season, so that might give you further insight into how shitty it really was.

4. Giving Kansas City a professional sports team

The record of every professional sports team that has ever been located in Kansas City is downright abysmal. Between the Kings (basketball), A's (baseball), Chiefs (football) and Royals (baseball), you have two championships (Chiefs, 1969 and Royals, 1985) and a few playoff appearances. I feel bad for their sports fans.

5. Naming rights

I went to Pacific Bell Park on Opening Day in 2000, and since then, it's undergone two name changes: first to SBC Park and now AT&T Park. The Miami Dolphins' Sun Life Stadium has undergone seven: first it was known as Joe Robbie Stadium (1987-96), then Pro Player Park (1996), Pro Player Stadium (1996–2005), Dolphins Stadium (2005–06), Dolphin Stadium (2006–09), Land Shark Stadium (2009–10) and now Sun Life Stadium (2010-present). Although I get the reason why companies buy naming rights to the stadium, did the name really need to be changed seven times in 25 years? That's an average of a name change every 3.5 years, which can get really confusing especially if you're an older fan and used to the older names.

I could think of more, but that's about it; feel free to give me more bad professional sports ideas in the comments.