Everyone likes Kevin Durant.
Over at CBSSports Eye on Basketball, they put together a “likability index” — NBA players you just like the most based on game and personality — and Durant came out on top. He’s the league’s two-time scoring champ, led the USA to gold in the FIBA World Championships, has a pure game, is humble, is thoughtful, wears a backpack, not a guy who parties like Dennis Rodman, doesn’t have a lot of tattoos…
Um, about that last one.
Durant likes his ink, as the guys at The Basketball Jones pointed out, using a photo from Durant’s current trip to Asia. He just crams all those tattoos into the parts of his body covered by his jersey.
Why? Marketing. He knows he’s the clean-cut image guy, this way he looks like he doesn’t have tats while he plays. Okay, maybe that’s too cynical, maybe he likes just getting tattoos on his torso… no, I have a hard time thinking that’s the case. Whatever. It really doesn’t matter.
That a guy in the NBA has tattoos — a lot of them, even — is not a sign of some “thug” life. It’s generational, and while the 50-somethings in the luxury suites don’t get it, their favorite 20-something up-and-comers at their law offices have tats under their suits.
The world should be a meritocracy — you advance up the ladder based on what you do not how you look. An accounting firm should be that way. The NBA should be that way. Durant can flat out play, he’s young and already come up big on big stages. It really doesn’t matter if he has tattoos on his arms or not.
Just don’t think he is ink free.