The 10 greatest mustaches in NBA history

DREAMINESS

Here’s an element of the Dream Team’s success that hasn’t received enough attention: a lot of the players had mustaches. I watched the entire The Dream Team documentary and I don’t remember mustaches being mentioned even one time. To be fair, not all of the mustaches were on display in Barcelona — some came later (which is why I couldn’t, in good conscience, include these guys in the Teammate Group), but it’s still pretty interesting.

Among this group of great American ballplayers, there was a fantastic variety of mustache styles, too. Charles Barkley earned a reputation as a player with an explosive personality, but he kept his pencil mustache very tightly controlled. In contrast, Patrick Ewing and Karl Malone liked to let their lip hair down every now and again, occasionally sporting big unruly mustaches. Michael Jordan wasn’t a habitual mustache grower but, damn, he could pull one off.

Sometimes a man’s mustache motives are just real simple — certain faces are legitimately improved by a little furniture. Clyde Drexler’s and David Robinson’s are two prime examples. Both dream-teamers maintained a very neatly manicured mustache throughout the 1990s. Now, it’s hard to imagine either one without his signature stache.

But the Dream Team’s most legendary soup-strainer belongs to the Hick from French Lick, Larry Bird. Most people probably wouldn’t consider it a thing of beauty, but that wispy farm-boy mustache provided some much-needed balance to his face — a wing to help offset Bird’s overhanging beak. Plus, no all-time greatest mustache list would be complete without a few blonde bristles in the mix.