A Pro Basketball Team’s Roots Score Big-Time in the NBA Naming Game

In Thursday’s column, I facetiously asked what body of water the Los Angeles Lakers are named for, whereupon several annoyed readers pointed out that the team was originally the Minneapolis Lakers.

My timing couldn’t have been worse, since the Lakers open in the playoffs against the current lads from the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes, the Minnesota Timberwolves.

I just hope I haven’t reopened old wounds, making the Timberwolves feel they have to avenge the theft of the state’s first team by L.A.

Anyway, my original point was merely that the Lakers’ nickname is no longer relevant and should be changed.

But Steve Koenig points out that the Utah Jazz have, against all reason, retained the nickname the franchise had in New Orleans.

And the L.A. Clippers’ name is a nautical reference to their former hometown, San Diego (of course, the team owner did sink the team’s chances this year with his strange personnel moves).

Koenig added that the football Raiders, no matter where they dwell, are appropriately named “after Al Davis’ business practices.”

Don’t flush this item: Judie Cogan of Winnetka snapped a sign about a landmark of which I was unaware (see photo).

Austrian-born artist Frederick Hundertwasser (misspelled by the beleaguered sign painter) fell in love with the town of Kawakawa, New Zealand, and wanted to reverse its decline.

The toilet-facilities building he refurbished is “a work of art, from the grass roof, to gold balls, ceramic tiles, bottle-glass windows, mosaic tiling, copper handwork and cobblestone flooring,” according to the town.

And to answer the main question I would have before visiting: The toilets are functional.

But not these ... : The outdoor structures (see photo) are not “Hundertwasser’s World Famous Toilets” but “An Unknown Westside Resident’s Discards.”

“Duh!” Award winner: Brian Crowley of El Segundo, who plays lead trombone in the Beach Cities Swing Band, noticed an unusual admonition at the top of the chart for the music to “Chattanooga Choo Choo” (see accompanying).

Said Crowley: “I hope it doesn’t reflect the level of intellect expected of musicians.”

Thought for the day: In the John Gregory Dunne novel “True Confessions,” much of which is set in the 1940s, a character comments that “a chic haunt in Long Beach” was one “where the bartender didn’t wear a tattoo.” A funny line in that era.

I never thought I’d say this, but nowadays, I guess, a chic haunt would be one where the bartender DOES have a tattoo.

Discord: The police log of the San Clemente Sun-Post said that “a woman was asked to take down wind chimes, and she responded by screaming and playing music loudly.” I’d say that was a small price to pay to be rid of the chimes.

miscelLAny: I heard a spot on the radio that said that Carol Channing has appeared in more than 5,000 performances of “Hello Dolly.” Which reminded me of a message scrawled by a critic in the 1980s on a wall near the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The writer had changed the fourth word of someone else’s religious graffiti and added a few more words so that it read: JESUS SAVES FROM HELLO DOLLY REVIVALS.