Lunchbox Links - Re-Branding the Raptors, NBA Free Agents, TBJ 1000 and More

We hadn't done a good edition of LBL in a while so figured with it being a relatively quiet Friday (so far), we'd roll one out.

Let's start with the big discussion currently amongst Raptors' media, "re-branding." The Toronto Star's Cathal Kelly writes that it's long past time to do away with the name "Raptors," and proposes a method to picking a replacement name.

And how about some of the original options that didn't beat the name "Raptors?"

Yikes.

Yahoo! Sports' Ball Don't Lie delves into the topic and the LA Times has gone as far as giving readers a chance to vote for the team's new name via online poll. However, what's with some of the options? Avatars? Avengers???

Oh, I get it, you're making fun of how "Raptors" was originally chosen.

Wait. Marlies?? Do you even know anything about Toronto sports???

How about Deadspin's "MS Paint Raptors Contest?"

Despite some of the suggestions above, at its base level, a name-change wouldn't be an idiotic venture. We advocated this a few years back, and while as Zach Lowe noted, the mascot, one of the league's best, should remain, a crisp new identity to go along with...um...say Andrew Wiggins, would hardly be a bad thing.

Moving on from marketing speak we go to the on-court part of the team as Masai Ujiri continues to settle into his new role. What's tops on his "to do" list? We'll be giving our own list over the next few days but for starters, you'd have to think that moving Andrea Bargnani is either 1 or 1A.

After that comes a litany of other decisions including investigating the upcoming free-agent market.

SI.com does a great job breaking down some of the top options by position starting with the ball-handlers, moving on to the wings, and finishing up with the big men.

Finally, a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge shout out to our friends at The Basketball Jones who just had their 1000th episode earlier this week. It's an amazing feat, and in recognition of the event, if you haven't seen it yet, the NBA TNT crew did a bit of tribute to the event.

Just awesome.