Diogu: His complete name is Ikechukwu Somtochukwu Diogu. Don’t know if that helps ;-)
In Arizona “Dio” or “Goo” were mentioned, but that’s just (parts of) his name and it didn’t seem to stick with him (not in his Wikipedia entry).

Rudy is already the short form of Rudolfo, but I see we need to come up with something different.
In a well-known YouTube clip they called him “Smooth Criminal” and used that song as the backdrop.
In his English Wikipedia entry “Rudy Airlines” plus “And Rudy took his gun” are mentioned. Both not that great IMHO.
The Spanish one has those plus two more: “Rudy Airlines”, “Y Rudy cogió su fusil”, “Ensaimada Voladora”, “El Helicóptero Mallorquín”.
The Helicopter doesn’t sound bad for a high-flying dunker who always seems to grab the ring and swing on it (if he allows we leave away the “from Mallorca”).

R-Fern=Rudy
Ike=Tina

Good Nickname (IMO)

Nic= Boom-Boom (Batum)

“Goo” is more than good enough for Diogu.

How about “il Diablo”.

How about “Speedy”.

Rudy “Spanish Fly” Fernandez.

I say we go the other way with it and take away any uniqueness in his name and ‘nickname’ him Bob Smith or David Miller or Jon McDonald, something really generic as an ironic way to approach nicknaming a fellow with a name so unique and neat that a nickname is not ever needed.

Ike “Brian Johnson” Diogu gets my vote!

Mortimer!

“I-Like-Ike”
and
“El Kabong!”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_Draw_McGraw

Dave – Snuggle Puff
Ben – Cuddly Winks

he is the master of nicknames.

To whit:

Gary Payton: The Glove
Shawn Kemp: The Reign Man
Ricky Pierce: Big Paper Daddy
Sam Perkins: Big Smooth
Mario Elie: The Chaperone

Calabro is out of his Supes contract and due to be the voice of the Seattle Sounders in 2009. Can we get him down here for one year, to do radio play-by-play (btw, an excellent play-by-play guy and a favorite in the blind community)? Then we would have an entire raft of nicknames for our guys… no more “GO”, “LMA”, “BRoy” nonsense.

Call me esoteric but here I go:

Rudy Fernandez = “The Conquistador!”

I know that it defies easy typing on the blog but we, the posting population, seem to have little trouble coming up with typing shortcuts. (I very recently deciphered RLEC, for example.) I love this nickname because I can hear wheels saying something like the “The Conquistador crushes, crucifies, and holds in contempt the puny defense!” I also like that it’s historically accurate: a spaniard coming in to try and totally dominate a new continent.

Batum = Saif (or maybe “Shamshir” or merely “Saber”)

I was trying to think of something historical again—I mean, the moors (saracens) invading France, how fertile is that ground for nicknames? So I went looking for famous saracen weapons and found these nice bits about the curved swords historically used in that part of the world. “Saif” = sword but associated with curved sabers, “Shamshir” is more appropriate for North Africa, and “saber” is merely the common English translation. Very appropriate for a “slashing” small forward, I think.

Diogu = Bette Midler

Okay, this is pretty lame but kind of funny. Diogu is one of those lunch pail guys, right? The kind of guy that does the dirty work? The kind of guy that helps other guys fly high? Kind of like, you know, the wind beneath their wings?

Because honestly if they are any good at all, someone nationally will dub them something.
Has “The Natural” caught on for Roy nationally?

Most good nicknames are born out of an aspect of the player’s game… such as “Air” or “Magic.” As for our Blazers I’m just not sure there’s any one on our roster who deserves a nick name yet… let’s make the play offs and maybe have a winning record before we start pounding our chests.

That being said I’m going to contradict myself and discuss nick names for two rookies who have a career stat line fills with 0’s.

I really like “Rex” for Bayless, I can’t tell you why but it fits somehow.

Just use Rudy’s first name as his nick name. “Rudy” like international soccer players become one name stars, or even “K*be” is mostly without a nickname (despite that mamba nothingness). He’s mostly just known by his first name.

Rudy should be called the Matador (spell check please) whenever we play the Bulls. And Ike could simply be ID as in identify the fool getting posterized in the post. And I also think that Jerryd Bayless should be known as the Hitman because he is an assassin with a wardrobe torn straight out of GQ. And Nicolas ” frog legs” Batum sounds good to me, he is skinny and probably eats those.