To mark the start of the NBA’s 81st season, the Man Mulligan travel train has pulled into Grand Central for tonight’s matchup between the new-look, old-LeBron Philadelphia 76ers and the world-champion, won’t-let-anyone-forget-it New York Knickerbockers in what promises to be just the first exchange in a seasons-long battle for Eastern Conference supremacy.
While the Sixers and Knicks have been going at it for decades, Philadelphians and New Yorkers have been feuding even longer, ever since the nation’s earliest colonial days, in fact, and their history-rich team names reflect those roots, specifically Philadelphia’s as the country’s birthplace and New York’s as an early trading post and then colony of the Netherlands.
So, how do those nicknames stack up today, hundreds of years post-provenance, and, most importantly, which team earns the coveted Man Mulligan nod for tonight’s banner-dropping game? Both score high on our scale, but this tip-in goes to the Knicks, 9 Old Dutch Cleansers to 8 Quaker Oats Cans.
***