Houston Rockets, 2012-13
Tattoo percentage: 60% (9 players with tattoos, 6 without)
The Rockets saw their tattoo percentage increase significantly from last year.
Players with tattoos:
James Anderson
Anderson has a tattoo on his left arm.
Patrick Beverley
Beverley has tattoos along both arms.
Aaron Brooks
Brooks is one of a small group of heavily tattooed NBA players raised in Seattle. Tattooed on his left shoulder is the city’s area code, 206, overlaid on an outline of the space needle.
Carlos Delfino
There’s something about the stylized, bold lines of Delfino’s dragon tattoo that makes me think it’s a logo or from a flag or something, but I’ve never found any corollary. Someone did get a copy of it in 2009….
Donatas Motiejunas
Motiejunas’s most well known tattoo is the eagle on his chest, however a photo of him receiving another tattoo on his stomach was revealed earlier this year on twitter.
Tim Ohlbrecht
Ohlbrecht has a tattoo of a tiger on his left arm. In an interview with the German sports website SPOX, Ohlbrecht explained that father has had the same tattoo for 40 years and this was the player’s way of bringing his father to all of the games.
Thomas Robinson
Among his tattoos are the Washington Nationals logo (Robinson was born and raised in D.C.); the phrase “Success is Nothing Without Failure”; and the “F.O.E.” (Family Over Everything) tattoothat his Kansas teammates Josh Selby and Marcus and Markieff Morris also wear.
Greg Smith
Smith has tattoos along both arms.
Royce White
According to a 2012 Sports Illustrated profile, White has 13 tattoos, including text reading “Attack Everything Always” and a portrait of Frank Sinatra.
Players without tattoos:
Omer Asik
Francisco Garcia
James Harden
Terrence Jones
Jeremy Lin
Chandler Parsons
Sacramento Kings, 2011-12
Tattoo percentage: 50% (7 players with tattoos, 7 players without)
The Kings keep their percentage dead even with last year’s team regardless of a few trades and the addition of rookies Fredette, Honeycutt, and Thomas.
Players with tattoos:
DeMarcus Cousins
In August of 2011, Cousins posted a photo on Twitter of his new tattoo reading “Misunderstood” along his calf.
Donte Greene
Greene has tattoos on both arms.
Tyler Honeycutt
On Honeycutt’s right shoulder is a tattoo of a hand holding a basketball framed by the text “City of Angels” in script.
John Salmons
Salmons has Chinese characters on his right arm. According to the website NiuBBall.com, it’s identical to Jermaine O’Neal’s Chinese tattoo, and means “person who sells coffins.”
Isaiah Thomas
Among Thomas’s many tattoos is a quote from the film Hoop Dreams on his right shoulder.
Marcus Thornton
Among Thornton’s many tattoos is a line of text along his collar that reads: “Protected by God I fear no man.”
Terrence Williams
Another of the heavily-tattooed players born and raised in Seattle, Williams has a tattoo of the number 8 resting in a spiderweb, a reference to the Section 8 housing that he and Nate Robinson and their other friends grew up in, a tattoo that many of them have.
Players without tattoos:
Tyreke Evans
Jimmer Fredette
Francisco Garcia
Chuck Hayes
Travis Outlaw
Jason Thompson
Hassan Whiteside
Sacramento Kings, 2010-11
Tattoo percentage: 50% (7 players with tattoos, 7 without)
I like a lot of the pieces on the Kings—the young guys like Cousins and Thompson, Francisco Garcia’s gravity, Thornton’s dominance since being traded from the Hornets—and I would love it if Geoff Petrie would keep the squad together and try and pick up the momentum they had for the last month of the season. I have a feeling it’s not going to happen. I think the difference between Daniels’ “Only the strong survive” and Jackson’s “Suicide is not an option” pretty much spells out the almost-but-actually-not-at-all chemistry the team has.
—
Players with tattoos:
DeMarcus Cousins
On Cousins’ left arm is a spider sitting in a web that stretches from his shoulder to his elbow, marked with the text: “stuck in the game.” On his right arm is a basketball wearing a crown with a banner that reads “king of the game.” Game!
Marquis Daniels
Daniels is without question one of the most tattooed players in the league, and bearer of one of the most stressful tattoos in the world: beneath the text “only the strong survive,” a man commits suicide with a rifle. When asked about the tattoo, Daniels explained, ““If you’re not strong, you’re willing to do anything to find a way out.”
Donte Greene
Until the arrival of Daniels, Green was the most heavily tattooed player on the Kings. While more recent photos reveal the tattoo on his right shoulder to be a ball passing through a hoop, surrounded by flames, tell me it didn’t look like Cousin It wearing a top hat back in his rookie year.
Darnell Jackson
Jackson just got on twitter in March of 2011. Less than 60 tweets in, he posted a heartbreaker on March 25, the anniversary of his mother’s suicide. While Jackson has quite a few tattoos, including a tribute to his deceased grandmother on his left shoulder, it’s the one for his mother—the text “suicide is not an option” on his wrist—that he leans on the most: “If I’m out here working out or if I’m sitting in a room or if I’m working out in the weight room, I always just take a glance at my wrist and be like, ‘Suicide is not an option.’”
Pooh Jeter
The internet is seriously fronting on Jeter and the tattoo that occasionally peeks out of the left side of his jersey. I can’t find a photo anywhere.
Jermaine Taylor
Taylor has both arms pretty much covered.
Marcus Thornton
Among Thornton’s many tattoos is a line of text along his collar that reads: “Protected by God I fear no man.”
Players without tattoos:
Omri Casspi
Samuel Dalembert
Tyreke Evans
Francisco Garcia
Jason Thompson
Bene Udrih
Hassan Whiteside
Houston Rockets, 2012-13
Tattoo percentage: 60% (9 players with tattoos, 6 without)
The Rockets saw their tattoo percentage increase significantly from last year.
Players with tattoos:
James Anderson
Anderson has a tattoo on his left arm.
Patrick Beverley
Beverley has tattoos along both arms.
Aaron Brooks
Brooks is one of a small group of heavily tattooed NBA players raised in Seattle. Tattooed on his left shoulder is the city’s area code, 206, overlaid on an outline of the space needle.
Carlos Delfino
There’s something about the stylized, bold lines of Delfino’s dragon tattoo that makes me think it’s a logo or from a flag or something, but I’ve never found any corollary. Someone did get a copy of it in 2009….
Donatas Motiejunas
Motiejunas’s most well known tattoo is the eagle on his chest, however a photo of him receiving another tattoo on his stomach was revealed earlier this year on twitter.
Tim Ohlbrecht
Ohlbrecht has a tattoo of a tiger on his left arm. In an interview with the German sports website SPOX, Ohlbrecht explained that father has had the same tattoo for 40 years and this was the player’s way of bringing his father to all of the games.
Thomas Robinson
Among his tattoos are the Washington Nationals logo (Robinson was born and raised in D.C.); the phrase “Success is Nothing Without Failure”; and the “F.O.E.” (Family Over Everything) tattoothat his Kansas teammates Josh Selby and Marcus and Markieff Morris also wear.
Greg Smith
Smith has tattoos along both arms.
Royce White
According to a 2012 Sports Illustrated profile, White has 13 tattoos, including text reading “Attack Everything Always” and a portrait of Frank Sinatra.
Players without tattoos:
Omer Asik
Francisco Garcia
James Harden
Terrence Jones
Jeremy Lin
Chandler Parsons
Sacramento Kings, 2011-12
Tattoo percentage: 50% (7 players with tattoos, 7 players without)
The Kings keep their percentage dead even with last year’s team regardless of a few trades and the addition of rookies Fredette, Honeycutt, and Thomas.
Players with tattoos:
DeMarcus Cousins
In August of 2011, Cousins posted a photo on Twitter of his new tattoo reading “Misunderstood” along his calf.
Donte Greene
Greene has tattoos on both arms.
Tyler Honeycutt
On Honeycutt’s right shoulder is a tattoo of a hand holding a basketball framed by the text “City of Angels” in script.
John Salmons
Salmons has Chinese characters on his right arm. According to the website NiuBBall.com, it’s identical to Jermaine O’Neal’s Chinese tattoo, and means “person who sells coffins.”
Isaiah Thomas
Among Thomas’s many tattoos is a quote from the film Hoop Dreams on his right shoulder.
Marcus Thornton
Among Thornton’s many tattoos is a line of text along his collar that reads: “Protected by God I fear no man.”
Terrence Williams
Another of the heavily-tattooed players born and raised in Seattle, Williams has a tattoo of the number 8 resting in a spiderweb, a reference to the Section 8 housing that he and Nate Robinson and their other friends grew up in, a tattoo that many of them have.
Players without tattoos:
Tyreke Evans
Jimmer Fredette
Francisco Garcia
Chuck Hayes
Travis Outlaw
Jason Thompson
Hassan Whiteside
Sacramento Kings, 2010-11
Tattoo percentage: 50% (7 players with tattoos, 7 without)
I like a lot of the pieces on the Kings—the young guys like Cousins and Thompson, Francisco Garcia’s gravity, Thornton’s dominance since being traded from the Hornets—and I would love it if Geoff Petrie would keep the squad together and try and pick up the momentum they had for the last month of the season. I have a feeling it’s not going to happen. I think the difference between Daniels’ “Only the strong survive” and Jackson’s “Suicide is not an option” pretty much spells out the almost-but-actually-not-at-all chemistry the team has.
—
Players with tattoos:
DeMarcus Cousins
On Cousins’ left arm is a spider sitting in a web that stretches from his shoulder to his elbow, marked with the text: “stuck in the game.” On his right arm is a basketball wearing a crown with a banner that reads “king of the game.” Game!
Marquis Daniels
Daniels is without question one of the most tattooed players in the league, and bearer of one of the most stressful tattoos in the world: beneath the text “only the strong survive,” a man commits suicide with a rifle. When asked about the tattoo, Daniels explained, ““If you’re not strong, you’re willing to do anything to find a way out.”
Donte Greene
Until the arrival of Daniels, Green was the most heavily tattooed player on the Kings. While more recent photos reveal the tattoo on his right shoulder to be a ball passing through a hoop, surrounded by flames, tell me it didn’t look like Cousin It wearing a top hat back in his rookie year.
Darnell Jackson
Jackson just got on twitter in March of 2011. Less than 60 tweets in, he posted a heartbreaker on March 25, the anniversary of his mother’s suicide. While Jackson has quite a few tattoos, including a tribute to his deceased grandmother on his left shoulder, it’s the one for his mother—the text “suicide is not an option” on his wrist—that he leans on the most: “If I’m out here working out or if I’m sitting in a room or if I’m working out in the weight room, I always just take a glance at my wrist and be like, ‘Suicide is not an option.’”
Pooh Jeter
The internet is seriously fronting on Jeter and the tattoo that occasionally peeks out of the left side of his jersey. I can’t find a photo anywhere.
Jermaine Taylor
Taylor has both arms pretty much covered.
Marcus Thornton
Among Thornton’s many tattoos is a line of text along his collar that reads: “Protected by God I fear no man.”
Players without tattoos:
Omri Casspi
Samuel Dalembert
Tyreke Evans
Francisco Garcia
Jason Thompson
Bene Udrih
Hassan Whiteside
