The Pelicans, who will have their own newly-relocated G League affiliate for the 2021/22 season, announced today what the franchise will be called. As Christian Clark of NOLA.com details, the club will be known as the Birmingham Squadron. The Squadron’s logo can be viewed at the team’s website.
The nickname has ties to both the city of Birmingham and the club’s parent franchise — it’s an homage to Alabama’s military history, as well as the term for a flock of pelicans. The Squadron will play their home games at the Legacy Arena, which is currently undergoing a $123MM renovation. It’s expected to be ready to go by December.
The Pelicans have technically had a G League franchise since 2019/20, when they relaunched the Erie BayHawks as an NBAGL expansion team. However, the plan was always to move the club to Birmingham, far closer to the Pelicans’ home in New Orleans.
The two cities are separated by about a five-hour drive, which will make it easier to shuttle young players back and forth between the NBA and G League.
“We’ll be able to get guys in a car in the morning or the next day to be able to participate in a game or a practice,” Pelicans general manager Trajan Langdon said, according to Clark. “It will get more reps for our younger players, which is incredibly important. If we are full strength in New Orleans, we can get a guy back to Birmingham for a game that night. It’s super exciting.”
With the Nuggets set to introduce the Grand Rapids Gold for the 2021/22 G League season, only two NBA teams – Portland and Phoenix – will be without their own affiliates. The Trail Blazers and Suns will be able to send players to another team’s G League affiliate during the season via the flexible assignment rule.
One of the words for a group of Pelicans is indeed a squadron. Who knew?
Should have named the team the “Zions”
It’s a better name than their own team. Still dumbfounded they chose “Pelicans” over “Brass”. Just horrible team name to marketing in my own personal opinion.
Blame the founders of Louisiana when they chose to call it the Pelican State.
Lol that doesn’t mean anything. By that logic there should be the Chicago Prairies, the Atlanta Peaches, and the Utah Beehives teams. The only team that that works for is GSW.
New Orleans had a chance to name their team after something that represents their unique culture of their city, but they (and I mean the owner because if I remember right the owner chose the name) went with another bird mascot that doesn’t exactly sound that intimating.
There are
Iowa Hawkeyes
Indiana Hoosiers
Nebraska Cornhuskers
North Carolina Tar Heels
Ohio State Buckeyes
Oklahoma Sooners
Oregon State Beavers
Tennessee Volunteers
Wisconsin Badgers
And you could possibly even include the Dallas Stars
It’s not an uncommon practice, especially when the state nickname coincides with an animal.
*Brass wasn’t officially in the running but woulda been a great name
I hope for the Timpani. Great sound-effect tie-ins for the home arena.
The Percusses or Percussions are up there too.
The ladies’ team can be the bras’s.
I don’t get the complaints over Pelicans. They’re hunters. I guess they look too peaceful!
I disagree. Pelicans is at least a thing associated with New Orleans. Squadron is just a synonym for for team. And a generic one at that. They are basically the Birmingham Team.
Birmingham is probably best known for steel making. Why not the Steelers or something else associated with metalworking?
“Shuttle”?
5 hours isn’t a short drive tho…
Shorter than the drive from NO to Erie tho.
You should get 100+ upvotes for that geography moment
Yeah, and? What exactly will that get me?
The point is, it’s not a short “shuttle”. They may have to account for recovery, and call it 7 hours if they want performance.