The NBA scheduled 'nickname jersey' night in a game featuring the Miami Heat and the Brooklyn Nets. The game featured jerseys with "King James" "The Big Ticket" and "J. Shuttlesworth."

J. Shuttlesworth is for "Jesus Shuttlesworth" which was the character Ray Allen played in the Spike Lee movie "He Got Game." 

The NBA started having themed jersey nights because of the success of previous promotion like Cinco De Mayo jerseys (celebrating the Mexican holiday). This season, they have Christmas Jerseys and jerseys celebrating their home city or state. All these promotions are a way to increase jersey sales.

The Brooklyn Nets - Miami Heat game was seen as a good game to re-introduce the nickname jerseys. This is the first time the league had officially ordered teams to wear nicknames instead of surnames, but it is not the first time this happened.

ESPN Uni-Watch recalls the pioneer players who wore nicknames instead of their surnames:  "The most famous NBA nickNOB (Name on back) was worn by Pete Maravich, who had "Pistol" on his back -- sometimes with quote marks and sometimes without -- while playing for the Jazz and Hawks. (Unsurprisingly, the more traditionalist Celtics had Maravich wear his surname when he played for them at the end of his career.)

Apparently, the league did not really prohibit it. More players like Rudy Tomjanovich (Rudy T) Elvin Hayes wore "E" with big quotation marks and Walt Bellamy wore "Bells." 

From ESPN.com, the full list of nicknames used last night. Notable snub is "Flash" for Dwyane Wade, using the much boring D-Wade. He did not play though.

The Heat's full list:

Ray Allen: J. Shuttlesworth
Chris Andersen: Birdman
Joel Anthony: Doc
Shane Battier: Battle
Michael Beasley: B Easy
Chris Bosh: CB
Mario Chalmers: Rio
Norris Cole: Cole Train
Udonis Haslem: UD
LeBron James: King James
James Jones: JJ
Rashard Lewis: Sweet Lew
Roger Mason Jr.: Moneymase
Greg Oden: G.O.
Dwyane Wade: D. Wade

The Nets Full list. Notable exception was Andrei Kirilenko's famous AK-47, because of it is gun related and the NBA is making a conscious effort to avoid a controversy. Kirililenko just wore his last name spelled in Russian letters.  "Dray Live" is a new one, though.

Andray Blatche: Dray Live
Alan Anderson: Double
Brook Lopez: Brooklyn
Deron Williams: D-Will
Jason Terry: JET
Joe Johnson: JJ
Kevin Garnett: The Big Ticket
Mason Plumlee: Plums
Mirza Teletovic: MT3
Paul Pierce: Truth
Reggie Evans: Joker
Shaun Livingston: S Dot
Tornike Shengelia: Tokomotiv
Tyshawn Taylor: Tee_Y