Norman Powell is playing well enough this season that I feel comfortable announcing my new nickname for him. This nickname has positive connotations, which means that it can only be applied to Powell when Powell is having a positive impact on the court. This is in contrast to my many nicknames for players that are negative, and thus, only apply when the player in question is playing poorly.
Are you ready for the big reveal? Do you have your seatbelt on? Here it comes:
The Norman Conquest.
This is a good nickname for two reasons. One, it implies that Powell is a conqueror, which is definitely true if he’s hitting threes and dunking it all over his demoralized opponents’ heads. Two, it’s a reference to the history of the United Kingdom that makes the sayer of the nickname seem really smart and educated.
Basically, and I’m paraphrasing here, but what happened during the Norman Conquest was a bunch of dudes from mainland Europe went over to England and kicked their asses and occupied the hell out of them. The Wikipedia article about it is too long to do more than just skim over it, but it’s clear to me that any basketball player would like to be compared favorably to the invading Normans because they showed how powerful, manly, and sexually potent they were.
So, yeah. The Norman Conquest. This is, frankly, the best nickname I’ve ever come up with and I will be personally insulted if it doesn’t catch on.