A Brief Overview of the NBA's Most Notable Haircuts

Each NBA season has its breakout stars. Some are familiar names, suddenly doing things we didn't think they could do. Some are guys we've never even heard of, who are playing their way into familiarity. When you do spectacular basketball things, people notice. It is hard to do spectacular basketball things, however, and there is a much more efficient path into the public imagination for NBA players: very noticeable hair.

As the only major American team sport that doesn't demand its players wear a hat or a helmet, pro basketball gives its participants unrivaled opportunities to show off their locks. The NBA's most strikingly groomed players are already celebrated for their work, the world already rich with prose hymning the poetics of James Harden's bombastic beard or Joakim Noah's flowing mane. So today we celebrate new and emerging NBA hair: the next generation. Of guys with goofy haircuts.

JEREMY LIN

This is easy. Jeremy Lin's renaissance season with the upstart Charlotte Hornets has been a wonderful thing. He's more or less returned to Linsanity levels, but this is not why people are talking about him again. Lin began the year with his hair in a dazzling Super Saiyan spike, shimmering with styling gel. He has since sported an almost uncountable variety of looks that have us hoping he learned irony at Harvard. "Spencer [Hawes] has had a big role in my hair every night," Lin says of his similarly silly-haired teammate. "He actually determines my hair style on some of the nights." Lin goes on to tease our sensibilities, saying of his hair that "there's a long-term goal and we're not there yet."

After his incomparable introduction into the NBA mainstream, followed by a shit storm of undue fan fervor (both positive and negative) and bad experiences on teams with ball-stopping sociopaths, Lin's follicular experiments are a welcome palate cleanser. With each Supercuts mushroom bowl and man bun, Lin seems further removed from the clutches of a legacy defined by one beautiful and uncanny month in Manhattan and subsequent years of insufferable hot take debating. With every ridiculous new 'do, Lin seems more free and alive. The five best hairstyles you're likely to see in the NBA this season are all going to be on Jeremy Lin's head, and it's terrific.

KEVIN LOVE

In Cleveland, Kevin Love is looking to move past the thorniest season of his career by embracing a role that doesn't see him touching the ball nearly as often as he did in his All-Star seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Dad LeBron needs his power forward to be a more generous, off-ball presence, and Love is not going to get in the way. He is, in fact, diving headfirst (sorry, very sorry) into this job with his luscious new curly locks and a 70s-scented headband. The sweet-shooting, outlet-pass-tossing 27-year-old is moving rapidly toward acquiring the nickname Free Love, and it looks good as hell.

DERRICK ROSE

Derrick Rose has recently returned to the clean-cut look he wore in 2010-11, when he won MVP and owned the heart of his hometown. The Bulls point guard has been through a lot since then: he's missed about two and a half seasons with variously busted knees; his desire for the game was called into question; he has been accused of some truly sickening crimes; and he's become both a borderline NBA starter and a pariah in the city that was not long ago on a fast track to make a statue out of him.

Rose's reversion away from the gnarly, organic hairstyle and menacing face mask (in place to treat his broken orbital bone, another little piece of Rose tragedy) that he started the year with seems almost like a stroke of reconditioning and penance for a man who's gone astray. Rose has even likened his makeover to an investment in God, which is not actually a thing that anyone ever says. Rose has played with more aggression and craft since visiting the barber, and while this little transformation may be just another fleeting episode in a troubled career, his cosmetic shifts will stand as a lasting image of his unparalleled professional struggles.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Allen Crabbe and Jared Sullinger, of the Portland Trail Blazers and the Boston Celtics, respectively, are looking to blaze a trail out of their relative anonymity with a pair of simpatico poufy frosted mohawks. Both young players have increased roles with their teams this year, and the 23-year-olds are each having the best seasons of their careers.

Steven Adams, an extremely amusing big man for the Oklahoma City Thunder, has doubled down on last season's porn mustache by growing his hair out like bearded samurai. George Hill, of the Indiana Pacers, has a much-discussed blonde thing happening atop his head, earning him many comparisons to Wesley Snipes circa Demolition Man in public and probably a few unkind Sisqo comparisons in private.

This is, all of it, a good thing. Even Sullinger's mohawk, mostly. NBA players have become fashion icons because their medium allows them to. The comparatively huge access that media has to basketball stars, in tandem with some creative paths through David Stern's still-standing repressive dress code, has created a singular fashion economy over the past decade. For lovers of deliriously overstated humanity, the league has long been the best game in town, and the one that lets its players' personalities live closest to the surface.

This breakout hair is just the most visible part of a proudly peacocking culture. The NBA is feeling itself a little bit, in other words, and is not afraid to look weird. That's a good look, regardless of how good it looks.