Skip to search.

Breaking News Visit Yahoo! News for the latest.

×Close this window

Ball Don't Lie - NBA

Ball Don't Lie

Mon Apr 19 11:05am EDT

The Los Angeles Lakers are growing playoff beards

By Trey Kerby

The playoff beard is a time-honored tradition in the NHL. It has its own Wikipedia page and everything. But in the NBA, it's not really something that's done too often. Sure, Brandon Roy(notes) and Steve Blake(notes) might decide to go scruffy for the playoffs, but it's never really caught on for basketball players. I'm assuming that's due to the increased wind resistance.

However, the Los Angeles Lakers are trying to change that this post season. The charge is led by Derek Fisher(notes), who might have been around back when some Greek uttered the world's most famous beard quote: "There are two kinds of people in this world that go around beardless —boys and women — and I am neither one."

However, the plan isn't going as well as the Laker point guard had hoped. From ESPN.com's Dave McMenamin:

Fisher said he made a pact with Sasha Vujacic(notes) this week to grow "playoff beards," but Vujacic has already shaved his off.

"I won't say any names, I'll just say No. 18, we made a pact that we were going to grow the beards out for the playoffs and we'd see how many guys we could recruit in, and lo and behold, two days into it, he shaved," Fisher said. "I'm left with the scruff, but I'm going to hold on and hopefully some guys will join in."

Not cool, Sasha. You can't just opt out of a beard pact like that. Losing your beard buddy can be demoralizing. However, with Vujacic's penchant for growing beards like nothing, he'll be back in the swing of things in no time.

And while Sasha might not be the most reliable beard bro, Lamar Odom(notes) has swooped in to pick up the slack. With the support of the Facebook fan page that has been created to praise this noble quest, things are looking up for the future of the NBA playoff beard. In fact, through the magic of Photoshop, I've dramatized the likely results of this experiment. I think you'll agree we're in good hands.

Godspeed, gentlemen.

digg delicious

Related Articles

Launch Article Browser

Ball Don't Lie

Add to My Yahoo! RSS

Related Photo Gallery

More NBA Photos »

Y! Sports Blog