The Sacramento Kings' Transformation Into A Third-Rate L.A. Basketball Team Is Underway

The booze-and-gambling inheritors who run the Sacramento Kings filed trademarks earlier this month on several names that might just mean something, according to the . Among them:

"Anaheim Royals" "Los Angeles Royals" "Orange County Royals" "Anaheim Royals of Southern California."

We can probably rule out the middle two names, given how sensitive Anaheim seems about its image:

The team's potential new name, should it move to Anaheim, has caused much speculation in Southern California, and has prompted legal questions.

A contract between the city of Anaheim and the managers of the Honda Center stipulates a team playing in that arena must identify itself as an Anaheim team, with Anaheim as the first word and "sole geographic identifier" in the team name.

Using the Anaheim name has been a sensitive point for the city ever since the baseball team changed its name to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Might we suggest the "Anaheim Royals of Orange County Adjacent to Los Angeles in Southern California but Having Nothing to do With Los Angeles"?

Before Los Angeles, er, Anaheim embraces Les Frères Maloof with open arms, however, remember that the billionaire party boy brothers still have to pay back a $67 million loan to Sacramento, were asking the cash-strapped city for more money to build a new arena, and had, at one point, tried to levy some kind of weird sales taxes on citizens called "Measures Q and R."

Let's also not forget that there are two other teams in Los Angeles. And that the NBA is headed for a lockout. And that the economy sucks. And that the Kings suck. And that Anaheim sucks. Hard.

Kings Name Wouldn't Move to Anaheim [The Sacramento Bee]