If they do badly, they'll be wasted. They'll have bombed. They'll be buried.

Maybe they should start calling the team the Salt Lake Isotopes.

But seriously, folks.

EnergySolutions, the nuclear waste handling business, is paying a pretty penny to replace the bankrupt Delta Air Lines as the marquee sponsor of Larry H. Miller's arena for the next 10 years. No figures were released, but these things routinely go for millions of dollars. And it is unlikely that EnergySolutions boss Steve Creamer is doing this just to get himself Utah's biggest vanity license plate.

This company wants its name out there. It not only wants to wash aside the bad taste left by the scandals of its previous incarnation - Envirocare - it wants to be seen as a pillar of the community, a sponsor of philanthropic works. And it benefits if Salt Lake City builds a global reputation as a major-league city so that the company's HQ can draw the best scientists and engineers.

The best view of all this is that good press will actually help EnergySolutions achieve global respectability. If it really figures out how to reprocess and reuse high-level waste from nuclear power plants, much hotter than the debris it now houses in Utah, it will have removed the major barrier to a future of greenhouse gas-free energy production. And more than a basketball team will be proud to be associated with it.

The more sinister spin, though, is that by putting its name on the building where Utah state legislators are already frequent guests of industrial lobbyists, EnergySolutions is seeking coziness and clout so as to escape the levels of regulatory scrutiny that any such business must have in order to be - and to be seen to be - trustworthy.

If EnergySolutions can afford to spend this kind of money, and put itself this firmly in the public glare, then it can pay for a recommended perpetual care fund for its low-level disposal site in Tooele County, stop trying to read the rules in a way that allows the stacking of radioactive waste onto higher piles and be as transparent in its moves as a very tall man in short pants.

With thousands of fans, and three referees, watching their every move.