Which New Washington Wizard Has the Best Nickname?
By Ethan Smith
Not ALL Nicknames are Created Equal
•Ish Smith: Ish
•CJ Miles: C.J. Kilometres
Something I forgot to mention about nicknames earlier: they aren’t all great. For every Gary “The Glove” Payton or Andrei “AK-47” Kirilenko, there’s a dud of a nickname to go right along with it.
Ish Smith‘s nickname being Ish is technically true, I guess. But it’s like saying Joseph’s nickname is Joe, or Michael’s nickname is Mike. It’s just shorter, and it’s not at all exciting. It hardly qualifies as a real nickname in my book. But whether you want to call him Ish or Ishmael, at least the man’s got a sense of humor about it. Also, he’s apparently pretty well read if he stays ready with the Moby Dick references.
I asked him before his rookie year if he would prefer Ish or Ishmael in print. He did not miss a beat, said, "Call me Ishmael." https://t.co/D1h8oRD3F3
— Jonathan Feigen (@Jonathan_Feigen) July 2, 2019
C.J. Kilometres luckily is a nickname that never stuck. In light of Miles moving to Canada after being traded to the Toronto Raptors, it looked like Miles was going to need to ditch his surname in favor of something more metric-friendly. After some serious thought and discussion with his wife, though, Miles stuck with Miles. Now that’s he’s back in the states, the metric monicker can go.
Me and the wife talked it over .. but ultimately decided to stick with Miles .. was close though!.. https://t.co/xVvXTepiCe
— C.J. Miles (@masfresco) July 10, 2017