The Top Five NBA Players Who Should Never Inked Up

Tattoos adorn many basketball players and showcase their personality. Then there are some NBA players who probably shouldn't be sporting any. Sonics Center Robert Swift crossed that line sometime over the summer, and now features "Anything is Possible" on his left arm, "Just Believe" on his right arm, and what appears to be the And-1 mascot on his right arm and chest. Why a seven foot tall white boy from Bakersfield (a city that rivals Fresno for the title of "Ass Crack of California") feels like he's a more complete person with tattoos is something not even Freud could understand. For a guy whose two year career has been every bit as bad as that awful Fox show "The War at Home," someone should have told him that tattoos don't exactly make the basketball player. Though he has yet to turn 21 and has plenty of time to turn around his basketball career, he probably jumped the gun in the ink department.

In honor of Swift, we've taken the liberty of listing the top five athletes who should never get inked up:

5) Jackie Butler
I argued that JJ Redick should be in this spot, but he'll have to settle for an honorable mention. Tailor's logic won out: the guy is so fat, the skin would roll over the tattoo and distort it.

4) Earl Boykins
At 5'5" and 133 pounds, Boykins is so small that the only tattoo that could fit on his body is a dot. Maybe if he's lucky, someone would be able to scrunch in a smiley face on his back.

3) Adonal Foyle
Foyle is probably the least intimidating center to ever play the game. For a guy whose strength is poetry, how he racked up over 1,000 blocks in nine seasons is beyond us. Foyle is very active in the community, but it's a good thing he isn't active in a tattoo parlor in Oakland. There's absolutely no way a guy who gets more shots blocked by the rim per 48 minutes should ever have "CRU THIK" and "DYNASTY RAIDER" tattooed on his left arm.

As far as the poetry goes, this is too good an opportunity to pass up. Sink your teeth into this:

"We are smart.
Me want Doctors,
Professors,
Engineers,
Scientists,
Me want education man."

2) Mike Dunleavy Jr.
For a guy whose four-year NBA career has defined by the word "soft," this shouldn't be a big surprise. Throughout his career, Mike has been in the news a couple of times for little outbursts that tend to be funny because of their relative absurdity. In March 2005, Mike blew a gasket and got his ass ejected because of several questionable calls, and then took his jersey off and threw it in the stands as he left. In February 2006, Mike was once again in the news for going crazy, unloading a profanity-laced rant at a reporter in defense of teammate Mickael Pietrus.

In four years, there have been two "incidents." Displaying emotion has been a big first step for Mike, but a guy who amazes the world by getting slightly mad should never get a tattoo.

1) Adam Morrison
EA Sports would have you think Morrison is a tough guy whose intensity is unrivaled. Their ad campaign for NBA Live 07 -- a video game which is every bit as crappy as the commercials -- touts the guy as if he's the next Larry Bird.

He's not. At least not on the Bird scale of being a badass.

Morrison (and EA Sports, I suppose) can play it off like crying is a manly thing. But crying -- while your team STILL HAS A CHANCE TO WIN -- is about as manly as the salad and wine that my girlfriend-less apartment-mate just brought home from Safeway for dinner. The only way Morrison can shed the stigma of crying in the loss against UCLA is scoring a hundred points against the Pistons -- and finishing his three-digit effort by dunking and landing on the shoulders of Antonio McDyess. Anyway, this is a guy whose career will be marred by below average defense, non-existent rebounding ability, and well, he cries like a baby in crucial spots. Why the hell should he have tattoos?