Minnesota Timberwolves, 2012-13

Tattoo percentage: 47% (7 players with tattoos, 8 without)

image

The Timberwolves kept their tattoo percentage the same as last year.

Players with tattoos:

Dante Cunningham
As of his senior year of college (2009), Cunningham has nine tattoos, including one that reads “TROUBLE” on his left arm.

Mickael Gelabale
Gelabale has a tattoo on his right arm.

Chris Johnson
Johnson has tattoos on both arms.

Andrei Kirilenko
In the spring of 2011, Kirilenko got his first tattoo, a huge portrait of a dragon on his back.

Nicola Pekovic
Pekovic’s tattoo of a knight standing atop a heap of skulls is one of the best-loved tattoos in the league.As described by a 2012 StarTribune profile, a lesser-known tattoo on his back depicts “the Ostrog Monastery in Montenegro, which was built on the side of a mountain cliff in the 17th century and dedicated to St. Basil of Ostrog.” The article goes on to quote Pekovic about its significance: “For us, it’s a special place.”

Ricky Rubio
Rubio’s sole tattoo is a Chinese character on his wrist
.

Derrick Williams
As reported by 5th Quarter Magazine, Williams added a large tattoo to his back this year.

Players without tattoos:

JJ Barea
Chase Budinger
Malcolm Lee
Kevin Love
Luke Ridnour
Brandon Roy
Alexey Shved
Greg Stiemsma



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



NBA tattoos


2012-13 NBA overall tattoo percentage: 56%
250 players with tattoos, 196 without [details]


2011-12 NBA overall tattoo percentage: 55% [details]
2010-11 NBA overall tattoo percentage: 53% [details]

A player-by-player, team-by-team guide to tattoos in the NBA. It is not an attempt to document every tattoo of every player–rather it is an attempt to provide a series of tools for sorting overall tattoo statistics in the NBA alongside glimpses into tattoo trends. Click on any team name below for player details of that team:

Hawks - Celtics - Nets - Bobcats - Bulls - Cavaliers
Mavericks - Nuggets - Pistons - Warriors - Rockets - Pacers
Clippers - Lakers - Grizzlies - Heat - Bucks - Timberwolves
Hornets - Knicks - Thunder - Magic - Sixers - Suns
Trail Blazers - Kings - Spurs - Raptors - Jazz - Wizards

Click HERE for a complete list of NBA players discussed on this blog.

Disclaimer: This info is collected completely anecdotally, mostly by watching games, but also through study of photos, interviews, and player profiles. It’s very likely that tattoos have gone unobserved or remain hidden, especially on non-superstar players. Every effort has been made to present the best possible information, but statistics should not be considered definitive. Please use Ask Me to share any relevant information.