A brief rundown of some NBA tattoos: Part 2
This post is in honor of Jabari Smith Jr., whose Houston Rockets were ultimately defeated by my beloved Golden State Warriors.
This post is in honor of Jabari Smith Jr., whose Houston Rockets were ultimately defeated by my beloved Golden State Warriors.
Many people in the world have tattoos with Chinese characters. Some of those people are professional basketball players, which means there’s occasionally a high-res camera on their tattoo that you may see while watching basketball games. I think that this genre of tattoo is almost always corny. I also have some ability to read these tattoos, which is what brings us here today. This 2023 Yahoo Taiwan article covers pretty much the exact same ground that I’m going to cover, but that will not deter me.
Dereck Lively
Who: Dallas Mavericks center Dereck Lively II
The tattoo: 改善 (Instagram)
The language it’s probably in: Japanese
What it says: kaizen
What it means: He has the same tattoo as Aaron Gordon! “Continuous improvement” is a sentiment that makes a lot of sense for a pro athlete, but I think it’s very funny and very charming that they’re accidental twinsies.
Cringe rating: 5/5
D’Angelo Russell
Who: Los Angeles Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell
The tattoo: 家庭無畏 (Instagram)
The language it’s probably in: Chinese? Japanese?
What it says, maybe: jiātíng wúwèi, or katei mui
What it means: I’m not exactly sure how this is meant to be read, since it’s organized in a 2x2 grid. My initial inclination is to read it right-to-left and top-to-bottom, but that would say “庭畏家無” which doesn’t really make sense to me - literally it’s “garden fear house nothing.” If we read English style, left-to-right and top-to-bottom, then we get “家庭” (family) and “無畏” (fearless) which makes a little more sense, but doesn’t work as a sentence, I don’t think. It also doesn’t seem to be a four-word phrase.
Cringe rating: 6/5
Armando Bacot
Who: Memphis Hustle center Armando Bacot
The tattoo: 永生 (Instagram)
The language it’s probably in: Chinese or Japanese
What it says, maybe: yǒngshēng or eisei
What it means: “Immortality.” This is one of the easiest things I’ve ever had to research, for which I am grateful.
Cringe rating: 4/5
Jabari Smith Jr
Who: Houston Rockets forward Jabari Smith Jr
The tattoo: 安平金 (Instagram 1, 2)
The language it’s probably in: Chinese
What it says: ān píng jīn
What it means: “calm” “equal” and “gold.” If you change the order of the first two characters, it forms the word 平安 which means “safe and sound.” I don’t think it’s worth overthinking this, I think these are 3 characters that Jabari Smith Jr. presumably picked because he liked the sentiment. This entire string is also the name of a Yale lecturer, Annping Chin; Anping (安平) is also a district in the Taiwanese city of Tainan.
Cringe rating: 4/5 for being boring
That’s all I’ve got for now, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for more. If you see anything you think I should look at, let me know!