14 Oct, 08
NBA Tattoos Super Size Ink
Super-Shaq-Man Tattoo
Ten years ago, 35 percent of NBA players had tattoos, yet Dennis Rodman was the only player with tattoos that people bothered acknowledging, and when they did he was thought to be a bit of a freak.
Fast forward ten years to today, and the “ink coverage” on the NBA basketball courts has doubled with approximately 70 percent of the NBA player organization having tattoos.
This is not to say other professional sport affiliations, such as the NFL and NHL do not have a fair share of athletes with tattoos under wraps. In fact, under wraps is the key here as NBA player uniforms reveal more skin compared to other professional sport uniforms, making the NBA appear as a tattoo skin expose.
All of the high profile celebrity tattoo coverage in the media makes NBA player tattoos similar to the other brand labels celebrities wear and endorse. Pro basketball players’ tattoos are becoming conditioned as a marketing brand.
Among the more notoriously known tattooed NBA athletes is super-Shaq-man. This super-size talent comes equip with a super size ego and a superman tattoo. Shaq’s tattoo is clearly a representation of how the man feels about himself.
Although, Rodman reigned before him, it is Allen Iverson that most fingers point the blame too when it comes to replacing the NBA’s iconic Michael Jordan (no words needed to describe this man) with cornrows, thuggish street wear, and graphic tattoo designs that are now so infamously popular in the NBA.
Kobe Bryant, Stephon Marbury, Rasheed Wallace, Larry Hughes, Gilbert Arenas, and J.R. Smith are also a few fellow fellows who happen to be tattoo fanatics popular among fans.
