New team owners often have their hands full hiring executives, meeting fans and sponsors, and adding or cutting players. Michael Jordan, the new majority owner of the N.B.A. Charlotte Bobcats, is no different, only he may have something else on his to-do list: a new team nickname.

“If I get the understanding from the community, from the public, that we need it and it signifies change, yeah, I would do that,” Jordan told reporters in Charlotte, N.C., last month after he took over the team.

Ownership changes and relocations are rare chances to rebrand franchises, especially if poor play in the arena or outside scandal has dogged the team. But changing nicknames cannot assure a winning team, is expensive and can alienate fans, all things Jordan will have to consider.

Jordan will also have to weigh whether changing the team’s name makes sense when the Bobcats are finally having success. The team is enjoying its first winning season and will make the first playoff appearance in its six-year history. Then again, Jordan may decide to scrap the name to distance himself from the previous owner, Robert Johnson, whose team was known jokingly as Bob’s Cats. The Nets, too, will play the name game when they leave New Jersey in 2012. For now, the team plans to be called the Brooklyn Nets to capitalize on the borough’s basketball heritage, which has produced stars like Lenny Wilkens, Bernard King and Stephon Marbury. But with a new owner and a new arena, the team could opt for a full makeover. (The Nets began their life as the New Jersey Americans in the American Basketball Association.)