Spencer Hawes’ blue arm-sleeve was draped across Nick Young’s chair. The two have shared lockers next to each other for the entire season, but last Saturday was the first time they both took center court together in the starting lineup.
The pair combined for 21 points in Monday’s 103-100 loss to Memphis. Two nights prior, Young put in 20 points alone.
“I think we’ve developed a great rapport coming off the bench together,” said Hawes. “Coach [Doug Collins] told me before the season that Nick was someone I needed to get comfortable playing with because we’d be spending a lot of time together in that bench mob. Now that we’re starting together, I think we have a lot better of a feel of how to play with one another.”
Hawes and Young have two of the team’s most outlandish personalities. Hawes was sporting a mullet to start the year. Last week, he decided to take a spin around the court in a Segway. Young recently trimmed his Afro-spiked locks for a new look that teammate Royal Ivey has termed the “Sonic the Hedgehog.” Last month, Young wore leopard skin shoes into the locker room.
“Pretty much everything he [Young] wears, how he looks and what he says is all comedy to me,” said Hawes. “My mullet was a lot better than his little ’fro or whatever he has going on right now, but it became just too much for me to keep up with.”
Where Hawes embraces Young’s eccentricities, he doesn’t feel the same way about everyone.
“I don’t know what the hell he’s [Andrew Bynum’s] thinking,” Hawes said about Bynum’s hairdo. “He’s about five years behind the cornrows, plus he’s also a little too big for the cornrows. I liked his ’fro a lot better.”
It’s all about the hair
Metro takes a look at some of the more interesting grooming habits among Sixers players:
» Andrew Bynum’s flattened Afro: When your haircut gets you a two-minute segment on TMZ, you know you made it. This was the case for Bynum. You be the judge.
» Spencer Hawes’ mullet: Hawes rocked the mullet in style to start the season and looked more like a 1980’s rocker than a 76er. Give him props for pairing it with this patriotic headband, though.
» Nick Young, aka ‘Swaggy P,’ introduced the “Sonic the Hedgehog” last week and has had his best three-game stretch of the season. May the spiked Afro rest in peace.
» Bynum’s throwback Afro: Dr. J was the king of the Afro in Philadelphia. And when Bynum’s was stretched to its longest length earlier this season, it was almost as if the Doctor had never left.
» Bynum’s cornrows: We agree with Spencer that Bynum looked better with the Afro, but in a city where Allen Iverson is still in the not-so-distant past, the cornrows are a friendly reminder of what once was. Somebody get Tyronn Lue on the horn!
