Report: The New Orleans Hornets Will Soon Become The New Orleans Pelicans

Marc J. Spears says it, so it must be so: The New Orleans Hornets will soon become the New Orleans Pelicans. It's a nice little name, and it's battle-tested—the New Orleans baseball Pelicans existed most every season from 1887 until 1959—so it won't soon reek of turn-of-the-century-futurespeak like "Heat," "Thunder," "Magic," "Raptors," or "Wizards." However, knowing how things like this go, it will probably lend itself to a folksy mascot who occasionally speaks in a vaguely racist dialect—I'm thinking of Foghorn Leghorn or Michigan J. Frog. His name will be Roscoe Pelican, I'm thinking. Hmmm.... Michael Rapaport will play him in a hastily canceled animated series, maybe?

There's an additional benefit in this for web writers like us, though. The Getty Images wire is full of images of oil-soaked pelicans from all the various disasters that have hit the Gulf Coast in the last decade. (Like this one!) If the New Orleans basketball franchise continues playing like it has in 2012, we'll be ready.