Tattoos in the NBA

I was recently watching an NBA All star game that I had recorded back in 1992. As I was watching the game, something jumped out at me. I could not see any tattoos on the players and Dennis Rodman was even playing in the game! Things have sure changed over the last 20 years. Now it's rare to find a player with virgin skin.

Kenyon Martin, DeShawn Stevenson, J.R. Smith, Carlos Boozer all sport a ton of tattoos, but The Birdman has taken it to new levels over the last couple of years and has to be the most inked player. Not to be outdone, Andrei Kerilenko got a beast of a tattoo on his back during the post season.


  Maybe having some winged D & D monster on his back will give AK some more lift. Maybe it will intimidate other players. It will probably just make them wonder what he was thinking.

I was recently surprised to learn that Kevin Durrant has a ton of tattoos on his torso, but you'd never know from seeing him in uniform. I suppose some guys are a little more subtle than others. That's probably a smart business move if you want to project a clean image and be more likely to get endorsements by relating to a broader segment of society.

I'm not going to judge players who opt for tattoos, but they can be distracting and I think many guys are going overboard. I just feel bad for the players who have poor quality or lame tattoos, but I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.