I‘m not familiar with other US sports, but from what I understand, in the NFL for example players are usually called by their surname, right? Like Brady isn’t called „Tom“, Mahomes isn’t called „Patrick“, Rodgers isn’t called „Aaron“, etc.
Also, in european football it is common to call players by their surname. Messi, Ronaldo, Haaland, Mbappe, Lewandowski, Benzema, Bellingham etc… in 99% of the time football players are called by their full surname.
But now look at famous NBA players of the past: MJ, Kareem, Hakeem, Magic, Wilt, Shaq, Kobe, Dirk, etc.
Or famous players in todays league: LeBron, Giannis, Joker, Luka, Klay, Draymond, CP3, KD, Russ, AD, or famous rookies like Wemby, Chet.
Of course there are also famous players who are mostly called by their surname (Curry, Harden, Tatum, Booker, or in history guys like Bird, Duncan, Stockton etc). But rejecting the surname seems to be much more common in the NBA than in other sports league.
How did that come about? Was it always like that? What started this tradition?
I feel like people tend to use whichever name is less common. Like kd gets called durant, not kevin. Ben simmons gets called simmons, not ben. If you say “James”, its really unclear who youre talking about, but theres only one lebron (so far)
We all literally called him Ben for years tho
Fans of the sixers did when talking amongst themselves, yes. But random Magic fan isn’t gonna know who you’re talking about if you just say Ben