The scourge of the Association isn't Dick Bavetta. The true evil is...Neck beards

You want to know what happens when you have a professional league dominated by young hipsters with more money than brains to burn? You get bad facial hair. Wicked bad facial hair. There's too much in the way of bad facial hair in the world, and you'll see it all on display in the NBA.

Porn 'staches. Take a look at Wiz head coach Eddie Jordan, who looks like he just walked out of an 80's porn shoot, or possibly a Rockwell video. Jordan can't coach a LICK, but he just rocks the moustache.


Wannabe 'staches. You'll see those on the early entry high schoolers and on the soon to be in the NBA Adam Morrison. I hate to say it, but that's what I looked like in high school, rockin' the wannbe 'stache. But I looked cool, unlike Morrison. Yep, I was cool........Yeah.

Both scraggly ass and well groomed goatees and van dykes. The Pistons Rip Hamilton's goat fits both desciptions, much like a mullet. Well groomed and business like on the face, a party going on below the chin. Yes, sir...






Full on Grizzly Adams beards. Usually on centers and/or Euros, see this wonderful picture of the Cavaliers Zydrunas Ilgauskas for a great example. The fact that Ziggy looks to have walked right out of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" just makes the beard that much better. We'll get to Ziggy's partner in crime shortly. LeBron has much to answer for...

The fearsome Fu Manchu, favorite of bad asses, Discovery Channel reality stars, and gay men everywhere. James "Buddha" Edwards had one of the best old school 'staches ever. If he wasn't a 6'11" power forward with an unstoppable fall away jumper, Buddha Edwards, with that bad ass Fu, would have been a "Blacksploitaion" movie star. He'd be another Jim Brown or Fred Williamson, with a better 'stache.


Hell, in the Association, you'll see combinations of all of the above. But what's the latest on display when you see the hippest of the hip NBA player?

Neck beards. Yes, neck beards. An absolutely shameful use of one's neck and facial hair.

Pau Gasol of the Grizzlies. The first player I noticed wearing the worst type of beard ever. And he seems very happy with that ugly ass thing hanging off his jowels. Someone needs to tell Gasol that that he gets the chicks because he's sinfully rich, not because of that abortion of a beard.




Nenad Kristic of the Nets. He must have seen Gasol, and said,"The beard, I must have."









And here's the man-child that's will take this bastardized beard from Hell to the mainstream and beyond, the Cavaliers LeBron James. You'd think someone at Nike would have taken James aside. "Uh, Bron-Bron, the neck beard? Doesn't work. Can't ever work. Phil Knight would prefer you shave or grow a man's beard before we start pimping you and the shoes. Couldn't you talk to your center, Ziggy? Get a few tips? K?"

Trust me, in the next few weeks, you'll see all the twentysomethings reveling in their so-called coolness looking like utter doofuses in their neck beards. So now you know who to blame. Consider yourself warned.