Pek report continues…
As noted by Timberwolves reporter Jerry Zgoda, Nikola Peković has been wearing a shooting sleeve on his left arm, covering some recent tattoo work. Zgoda did some investigating, and shared the following info about the work in progress:
Minnesota Timberwolves, 2011-12
Tattoo percentage: 47% (7 players with tattoos, 8 without)
The Wolves have a below average number of tattooed players, but their percentage went up a bit from last year.
Players with tattoos:
Michael Beasley
Young Beasley, whose designs are among the most talked about in the league, described tattoos as both a language and a form of narrative for the Minneapolis Citypages: “I love tattoos. I feel like the era I’ve grown up in, tattoos are expression. Every tattoo I have has a meaning. Every tattoo I have is something I’ve been through.”
Wayne Ellington
Ellington has a tattoo on his inside right bicep.
Brad Miller
Miller has a tattoo of cartoon character Scrappy Doo.
Nikola Pekovic
Pekovic’s tattoo of a knight standing atop a heap of skulls is one of the best-loved tattoos in the league, inspiring a t-shirt, impassioned blog posts, and countless remarks that the design fits his game perfectly. Timberwolves blog A Wolf Among Wolves got some great quotes from Pek about the tattoo (“It’s just me and my progress this year,” says Pek, “the drawing is something like me.”) and Sports by Brooks offers an interesting historic review of the tattoo’s potential relationship with the history of Pekovic’s homeland, Montenegro.
Anthony Randolph
Tattoos peek out of both sides of Randolph’s uniform.
Ricky Rubio
Much like fellow Spaniard Rudy Fernandez, Rubio’s only tattoo is a Chinese character on his wrist.
Martell Webster
Webster has tattoos on both arms.
Players without tattoos:
J.J. Barea
Wes Johnson
Malcolm Lee
Kevin Love
Darko Milicic
Luke Ridnour
Anthony Tolliver
Derrick Williams
Eastern Europe
At the end of the 2010-11 regular season, there were 433 players in the NBA. 345 of these players are United States citizens, the other 88 represent 39 countries spread across 6 continents. Arranged by oversimplified regional groupings, the next few posts will examine tattoos geographically, continuing now with Eastern Europe. To view other regions, click HERE for Africa and HERE for Western Europe.
Half the reason I wanted to do this regional breakdown is so that I could link to this incredible Jason Johnson guest post from Free Darko about playing a pickup game in Bosnia against locals. It completely remodeled my perspective of Eastern European players (which was totally uninformed) and is worth quoting at length:
In the post, they possessed that wiry strength that, despite what we say, we don’t really believe exists. Every rebound was a struggle. They fought for the ball like it was something precious. None of them seemed to be able to dunk, yet all of them could jump high enough to block my attempts … on the rare occasions that they actually let me get into the lane. Their physical interior defense made low-post play seem like an inefficient use of energy and forced us to rely on out nonexistent outside shooting. For three games we were thoroughly outclassed, as the beatings got progressively worse. I had lost my share of basketball games in the past, but never had I left a court so defeated. Other losses had been disheartening and even humiliating, but none had ever shaken my beliefs.
Of the 18 players in the NBA who are Eastern European citizens, only four have tattoos. None of the four Serbian players have tattoos, and up until yesterday, none of the eight players from the former Soviet Union did either. Both of the players from Montenegro have tattoos, as does the sole player from Poland. I’m not willing to extend any of these observations to some kind of interpretation, but part of rethinking how these guys play means acknowledging regional differences instead of assuming all European players arrive in the US with the same game constructed from football flops and wily manipulations. If I’m thinking about regional difference, I can’t help but notice that players born in the Soviet Union don’t have tattoos, that the tattooed players hail from more contested zones.
I mentioned before that Pekovic’s medieval warrior tattoo made me uneasy, considering the actual violence and heaps of skulls that accumulated during his childhood, following the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Dan Gadzuric, whose mother is Serbian, has a tattoo involving a blood puddle that addresses this history. I’m not interested in claiming one tattoo is more significant or emotionally weighted than another, but as a kid hearing about war crimes on NPR I was terrified, speechless. I don’t have any idea how it would feel to grow up surrounded by such insanity. Following a list of violent, on-court actions by Eastern European players, and how such acts were dismissed by the media, Johnson concludes his post by directly addressing the psychic cost: “It’s unfathomable how much more easily we dismiss the aggression of young men raised in literal war zones than those born in figurative war zones.”
Georgia
Tattoo percentage: 0% (0 player with tattoos, 1 without)
Latvia
Tattoo percentage: 0% (0 player with tattoos, 1 without)
Lithuania
Tattoo percentage: 0% (0 players with tattoos, 3 without)
Montenegro
Tattoo percentage: 100% (2 players with tattoos, 0 without)
Poland
Tattoo percentage: 100% (1 player with tattoos, 0 without)
Russia
Tattoo percentage: 50% (1 players with tattoos, 1 without)
Serbia
Tattoo percentage: 0% (0 players with tattoos, 4 without)
Slovenia
Tattoo percentage: 0% (0 players with tattoos, 3 without)
Ukraine
Tattoo percentage: 0% (0 player with tattoos, 1 without)
Minnesota Timberwolves, 2010-11
Tattoo percentage: 38% (5 players with tattoos, 8 without)
The Wolves have a below-average percentage of tattooed players but it’s higher then their win percentage for the last three seasons. Yikes!
—
Players with tattoos:
Michael Beasley
Young Beasley, whose designs are among the most talked about in the league, described tattoos as both a language and a form of narrative for the Minneapolis Citypages: “I love tattoos. I feel like the era I’ve grown up in, tattoos are expression. Every tattoo I have has a meaning. Every tattoo I have is something I’ve been through.”
Nikola Pekovic
Pekovic has a classic looking tattoo of an armored warrior calmly lording over his kills, the kind of thing you’d see in 70s biker culture. A pile of skulls is not an unusual feature for a tattoo, but considering Pekovic’s childhood in Montenegro coincided with the Bosnian War and Croation War, it feels heavy.
Anthony Randolph
Tattoos peek out of both sides of Randolph’s uniform.
Sebastian Telfair
On Telfair’s back is tattooed the words “LUCKY ME,” a reference to the Jay Z song of the same name.
Martell Webster
Webster has tattoos on both shoulders.
Players without tattoos:
Wayne Ellington
Jonny Flynn
Lazar Hayward
Wesley Johnson
Kevin Love
Darko Milicic
Luke Ridnour
Anthony Tolliver
Pek report continues…
As noted by Timberwolves reporter Jerry Zgoda, Nikola Peković has been wearing a shooting sleeve on his left arm, covering some recent tattoo work. Zgoda did some investigating, and shared the following info about the work in progress:
Minnesota Timberwolves, 2011-12
Tattoo percentage: 47% (7 players with tattoos, 8 without)
The Wolves have a below average number of tattooed players, but their percentage went up a bit from last year.
Players with tattoos:
Michael Beasley
Young Beasley, whose designs are among the most talked about in the league, described tattoos as both a language and a form of narrative for the Minneapolis Citypages: “I love tattoos. I feel like the era I’ve grown up in, tattoos are expression. Every tattoo I have has a meaning. Every tattoo I have is something I’ve been through.”
Wayne Ellington
Ellington has a tattoo on his inside right bicep.
Brad Miller
Miller has a tattoo of cartoon character Scrappy Doo.
Nikola Pekovic
Pekovic’s tattoo of a knight standing atop a heap of skulls is one of the best-loved tattoos in the league, inspiring a t-shirt, impassioned blog posts, and countless remarks that the design fits his game perfectly. Timberwolves blog A Wolf Among Wolves got some great quotes from Pek about the tattoo (“It’s just me and my progress this year,” says Pek, “the drawing is something like me.”) and Sports by Brooks offers an interesting historic review of the tattoo’s potential relationship with the history of Pekovic’s homeland, Montenegro.
Anthony Randolph
Tattoos peek out of both sides of Randolph’s uniform.
Ricky Rubio
Much like fellow Spaniard Rudy Fernandez, Rubio’s only tattoo is a Chinese character on his wrist.
Martell Webster
Webster has tattoos on both arms.
Players without tattoos:
J.J. Barea
Wes Johnson
Malcolm Lee
Kevin Love
Darko Milicic
Luke Ridnour
Anthony Tolliver
Derrick Williams
Eastern Europe
At the end of the 2010-11 regular season, there were 433 players in the NBA. 345 of these players are United States citizens, the other 88 represent 39 countries spread across 6 continents. Arranged by oversimplified regional groupings, the next few posts will examine tattoos geographically, continuing now with Eastern Europe. To view other regions, click HERE for Africa and HERE for Western Europe.
Half the reason I wanted to do this regional breakdown is so that I could link to this incredible Jason Johnson guest post from Free Darko about playing a pickup game in Bosnia against locals. It completely remodeled my perspective of Eastern European players (which was totally uninformed) and is worth quoting at length:
In the post, they possessed that wiry strength that, despite what we say, we don’t really believe exists. Every rebound was a struggle. They fought for the ball like it was something precious. None of them seemed to be able to dunk, yet all of them could jump high enough to block my attempts … on the rare occasions that they actually let me get into the lane. Their physical interior defense made low-post play seem like an inefficient use of energy and forced us to rely on out nonexistent outside shooting. For three games we were thoroughly outclassed, as the beatings got progressively worse. I had lost my share of basketball games in the past, but never had I left a court so defeated. Other losses had been disheartening and even humiliating, but none had ever shaken my beliefs.
Of the 18 players in the NBA who are Eastern European citizens, only four have tattoos. None of the four Serbian players have tattoos, and up until yesterday, none of the eight players from the former Soviet Union did either. Both of the players from Montenegro have tattoos, as does the sole player from Poland. I’m not willing to extend any of these observations to some kind of interpretation, but part of rethinking how these guys play means acknowledging regional differences instead of assuming all European players arrive in the US with the same game constructed from football flops and wily manipulations. If I’m thinking about regional difference, I can’t help but notice that players born in the Soviet Union don’t have tattoos, that the tattooed players hail from more contested zones.
I mentioned before that Pekovic’s medieval warrior tattoo made me uneasy, considering the actual violence and heaps of skulls that accumulated during his childhood, following the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Dan Gadzuric, whose mother is Serbian, has a tattoo involving a blood puddle that addresses this history. I’m not interested in claiming one tattoo is more significant or emotionally weighted than another, but as a kid hearing about war crimes on NPR I was terrified, speechless. I don’t have any idea how it would feel to grow up surrounded by such insanity. Following a list of violent, on-court actions by Eastern European players, and how such acts were dismissed by the media, Johnson concludes his post by directly addressing the psychic cost: “It’s unfathomable how much more easily we dismiss the aggression of young men raised in literal war zones than those born in figurative war zones.”
Georgia
Tattoo percentage: 0% (0 player with tattoos, 1 without)
Latvia
Tattoo percentage: 0% (0 player with tattoos, 1 without)
Lithuania
Tattoo percentage: 0% (0 players with tattoos, 3 without)
Montenegro
Tattoo percentage: 100% (2 players with tattoos, 0 without)
Poland
Tattoo percentage: 100% (1 player with tattoos, 0 without)
Russia
Tattoo percentage: 50% (1 players with tattoos, 1 without)
Serbia
Tattoo percentage: 0% (0 players with tattoos, 4 without)
Slovenia
Tattoo percentage: 0% (0 players with tattoos, 3 without)
Ukraine
Tattoo percentage: 0% (0 player with tattoos, 1 without)
Minnesota Timberwolves, 2010-11
Tattoo percentage: 38% (5 players with tattoos, 8 without)
The Wolves have a below-average percentage of tattooed players but it’s higher then their win percentage for the last three seasons. Yikes!
—
Players with tattoos:
Michael Beasley
Young Beasley, whose designs are among the most talked about in the league, described tattoos as both a language and a form of narrative for the Minneapolis Citypages: “I love tattoos. I feel like the era I’ve grown up in, tattoos are expression. Every tattoo I have has a meaning. Every tattoo I have is something I’ve been through.”
Nikola Pekovic
Pekovic has a classic looking tattoo of an armored warrior calmly lording over his kills, the kind of thing you’d see in 70s biker culture. A pile of skulls is not an unusual feature for a tattoo, but considering Pekovic’s childhood in Montenegro coincided with the Bosnian War and Croation War, it feels heavy.
Anthony Randolph
Tattoos peek out of both sides of Randolph’s uniform.
Sebastian Telfair
On Telfair’s back is tattooed the words “LUCKY ME,” a reference to the Jay Z song of the same name.
Martell Webster
Webster has tattoos on both shoulders.
Players without tattoos:
Wayne Ellington
Jonny Flynn
Lazar Hayward
Wesley Johnson
Kevin Love
Darko Milicic
Luke Ridnour
Anthony Tolliver
