Kobe Bryant’s famous “Black Mamba” nickname has spawned any number of basketball pet names.
Brian Scalabrine earned the “White Mamba” nickname from Bulls announcer Stacey King during the big man’s time in Chicago. Bryant himself bestowed the “Red Mamba” title upon the ginger-haired former San Antonio sharpshooter Matt Bonner.
But when Utah Jazz forward Kelly Olynyk slithers to the hoop, the franchise’s CEO Danny Ainge thinks of another creature.
And, in turn, it has fans thinking about one of the state’s most infamous murderers.
“They’re calling Kelly the ‘Great White Salamander,’” team broadcaster Holly Rowe revealed during a recent game.
The nickname dates back to when Ainge and the Celtics drafted Olynyk in 2013. When Ainge took over as Jazz CEO, he acquired Olynyk in a trade just days before the start of last season and the nickname came with him.
A Latter-day Saint, Ainge might be aware of the white salamander’s additional history in Utah. Perhaps the most famous forgery Mark Hofmann produced in the 1980s was the “Salamander Letter,” in which Hofmann described church founder Joseph Smith’s experience of finding the gold plates upon which the Book of Mormon was written. The letter described that “a spirit transfigured himself from a white salamander in the bottom of the hole.”
The fake document was meant to cast doubt on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints official history; Hofmann hoped to sell it to church leadership for a princely sum.
They didn’t end up striking a deal and later, in an attempt to avoid being caught as a forger, Hofmann killed two people with bombs in Salt Lake City in 1985. He is currently serving his life sentence in the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison.
So when Rowe mentioned Olynyk’s nickname on television recently it raised some eyebrows.
Obviously, Ainge doesn’t really mean to tie Olynyk to Hofmann — Olynyk is one of Ainge’s favorite players. And when I asked Olynyk about the phrase, he said Ainge used it less as a nickname and more frequently to describe the forward’s “slippery moves inside,” as Olynyk put it.
Still, it’s a reference with some unsavory connections.
“Yeah, I’m going to stick with ‘The Clinic,’” Jazz broadcaster Thurl Bailey said, noting one of Olynyk’s other nicknames.
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