LeBron, Luka Doncic — even NY Yankees — look different during coronavirus pandemic
Around this time of the year, most sports fans would be encumbered in the excitement of Major League Baseball starting or the NBA playoffs tipping off.
Most would be losing themselves inside their nearest sports bar and screaming along with NHL postseason drama unfolding on the TV sets, while others would be cracking open a cold one in their living rooms and watching NASCAR.
But the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed all that, and it’s reflecting in the faces of famous athletes.
Literally.
With nothing better to do than play video games and watch non-stop coverage of the NFL mock drafts, players have resorted to messing with their looks — as in, growing an entire woodland forest on their face.
Normally, this would be an exciting time of year for stars such as Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James and Dallas Mavericks wunderkind Luka Doncic, two NBA superstars who would have been wrestling for the playoff ratings spotlight.
Instead, both players are locked away like the rest of the world during this coronavirus madness as their faces slowly change.
“I’m looking like Tom Hanks off ‘Castaway,’ ” James stated on March 18 on Instagram.
And that was only a mere week following the suspension of the NBA season on March 11 after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus.
And now more athletes have joined in on the bearded madness.
On Wednesday night, Doncic posted an Instagram poll of whether he should shave his quarantine beard.
Doncic, a normally clean-shaven man-child of 21, has been entertaining fans via Instagram with videos of him playing with his pups while maintaining the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rule of social distancing.
Other famous athletes have joined in on this Game of Beards as well.
With the start of the MLB season delayed, the New York Yankees — who have a no-facial hair rule other than mustaches — have decided to break the rules and show off their beards during a video of players advising fans to practice social distancing by staying home.
For example, pitcher Gerrit Cole, after signing his Yankees contract, was forced to shave his beard before taking the field. He even expressed his displeasure of experiencing razor burn during his introductory news conference, according to InsideThePinstripes.
But now all bets are off.
One month before the NBA season was suspended, Sacramento Kings forward Harrison Barnes expressed that he would grow his beard until he helped push the Kings to .500.
When Barnes made this decision (in mid-December, he says), no one would have foreseen the season being suspended because of a pandemic.
What’s worse for Barnes, the Kings were making a playoff push and were only eight games under .500 before the season was halted.
And since the season isn’t technically over, Barnes is still as grizzly as ever, as you can see from footage taken from ESPN’s NBA 2K20 Players Tournament on April 3.
It just keeps growing like an NBA Special Edition Chia Pet.
On the other end of the spectrum, Barnes’ teammate, De’Aaron Fox, decided he was going to use his COVID-19 quarantine time to revert back to looking like a middle schooler.
Starting to think that once this pandemic is over, a majority of sports’ biggest superstars will come out of self-quarantine looking like a Rubeus Hagrid stunt double — Fox not included.
This story was originally published April 9, 2020 at 10:28 AM with the headline "LeBron, Luka Doncic — even NY Yankees — look different during coronavirus pandemic."