 IMAGE: Illustration by Ben Mollica |
A basketball player without a nickname is like pizza without cheese or Def Leppard without the one-armed drummer: It’ll do, but it could be so much better.
To that end, WW has embarked on an exhaustive, season-long search to name one of the Trail Blazers’ newest players, No. 44, Channing Frye. Frye is a Blazer who routinely receives the kind of Portland love normally reserved for goofy players with thick accents, like Arvydas Sabonis and Ha Seung-Jin. Frye has yet to achieve his potential on the court (averaging a little over six points and four rebounds per game this season), but he certainly loves his new city. “I can wear shorts and sandals and just sit down and watch the interesting people go up and down the street,” he said at an early Blazers press conference. A fishing enthusiast who has repeatedly expressed interest in Portland’s quirks, Frye has done his best to fit in, sharing favorite recipes with this month’s issue of Edible Portland magazine and promising to send awards to Portland’s weirdest citizens via his blog (channingfrye.com/blog).
All of which is fine and dandy, but the man still needs a nickname. In college, Frye was sometimes referred to as C-Money, but he shrugs it off—not a creative enough nickname. He also coined his own amazing nickname at an early press conference: The Buffet of Goodness. But that one is just too long. So WW went straight to the source for more suggestions.
Channing Frye: (Shrugs) I don’t know, man. Ask my teammates and see what they come up with. We’ll figure it out from there.
James Jones: Crinkle Cut. He’s a different type of guy. He’s not a straight fry, he’s not a curly fry—he’s a crinkle fry. Crinkle Cut French Frye.
Frye: (Laughing) Crinkle Cut? Keep searching. The only thing I got for you is, tell the guys Channing said to refer to him as Masta Killa. See what the reaction is.
Martell Webster: HAAA HAA! Masta Killa?
Jarrett Jack: We’re not calling him that. We’ll call him Home Frye.
Home Frye. Rolls off the tongue, fits Channing’s personality. It isn’t bad. But in case it doesn’t catch on, WW has compiled this list of other suggestions:
- Tater Tot
- Frenchy
- Snuggle Up
- Channery Row
- Yes We Chan
- UnChanny
- Frye Up
- Friday Night Fish Frye
- Fryer Dunk
- I Channot Tell a Frye
Suggest your own nicknames in the comments below!
EAT WITH HIM: Breakfast with Blazer Channing Frye to benefit the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Oregon Zoo Cascade Crest Banquet Center, 4001 SW Canyon Road, 220-2789. 7:30-9 am Monday, March 31. $45 and up. Purchase tickets at 223-9511 or defeatms.com. Home fries will be served.
I'm not sure if I like any of the options I've seen thus far. You can only play around with a last name so much and I don't think food references really do it.
Another option is to give Frye and LMA a joint nickname like two we saw in our comments: "The Mega Powers" (a la Hogan and Savage in WWF) or "The Double Dragon Twins"."
Or maybe "The .44 Magnum" because he's #44 and such a sweet pick and pop outside shooter.
There's got to be a perfect nickname out there, but I haven't seen it yet.