New Slang, Apparently

Last night, I played basketball in VA with my brother Allen and my two nephews. The four of us played against four other guys who were already at the court. We played back-to-back games for four hours. A guy on the other team called everyone "Lover." He said it every 30 seconds or so. It was said so many times that I forgot it was weird. After the 100th or so time, it became synonymous with "man." Actually, he didn't call everyone Lover. He referred to one of my nephews (who is 6'1 or 6'2") as "Lil Nigga," and called one of his teammates "Manwich." I'm going to say that Manwich won the nickname lottery that day.