The Golden State Warriors, the newest owners of the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy for winners of the NBA Finals, are also the owners of the most unique name in all of professional sports. While other teams have more ridiculous nicknames, Golden State is the only team in the four major professional sports not to be named after a city, state or region. So, why does a team that plays its games in Oakland named after the official nickname of a state that has an 840-mile coastline and three other professional basketball teams?

When you think about it, naming your team after the nickname of such a massive state is an absurd move of hubris and self-importance, especially when there’s “gold” in the title, a nod to the state’s place in the gold rush of the 1840s. But the Warriors didn’t always carry the Golden State name. The franchise moved from Philadelphia to San Francisco in 1962 and were quickly named the San Francisco Warriors, retaining the team nickname that the Philly franchise created in 1946, but beginning its team name with its new location, in the San Francisco Civic Auditorium.

With the opening of the Oakland Coliseum Arena in 1966, the team started playing some home games across the Bay, but kept its San Francisco name. It wasn’t until the team officially moved to Oakland in 1971 that the Golden State nickname was adopted.

Why? The team used some mumbo-jumbo about wanting to belong to “all of California,” but only apparently after leaving San Francisco. But that piece of trivia is almost completely ignored by the Warriors today. This season’s media guide is 385 pages and contains thousands of meaningless stats and blurbs like this one about the 1992-93 team — “Mullin, Hardaway, Marciulionis and Owens were on the court at the same time for a total of two minutes and 37 seconds (second quarter vs. Atlanta on Jan. 12)” — but says nothing about the reason for the name change, which is easily the biggest off-court moment in franchise history (and one of the biggest moments in any situation). Shoot, there are six pages on the franchise’s D-league team and nothing substantial on why the change from San Francisco to Golden State.

So, there’s an easy inference to make: For whatever reason, the team just didn’t want to have Oakland in its name. (Even the team’s awesome, new logo shows the Bay Bridge, which basically says “we’d rather be in San Francisco.”) And though the team would certainly deny it, that inference is supported by the following fact: With the Warriors scheduled to move out of Oakland in 2018 and back to San Francisco, there have been discussions about going back to the original name: the San Francisco Warriors. So, playing in Oakland led to no thoughts about being named after the Bay Area’s lesser city, but moving back across the water, to the swankier San Francisco, does?

It’d be a mistake to switch now, of course. San Francisco has the Giants and the 49ers. Every other of the 121 teams in major professional sports has the basic name of the region in which they play. Golden State is special for that reason. And now the team is special for winnin its first title in 40 years. It’s impossible to imagine they’d ever mess with karma and go back to the San Francisco moniker now.