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"With the sparkledust of Linsanity four years in the rearview, Jeremy Lin seems to have found some peace in Charlotte, which media-wise is a thousand times less bloodthirsty than both New York and Los Angeles, and has the added benefit of not being in Texas. (Just kidding, Houston! Put down your pitchforks and air-conditioning bills or whatever.) So when Lin started noticeably experimenting with his on-court hair this season\u2014rocking everything from bowl cuts to Dragon Ball spikes to a mini man bun that would be right at home in Silverlake\u2014it was hard, from a fan perspective, to not feel a familiar giddiness creeping up again. Could it be? Was Jeremy Lin having fun again?\n\nAfter all, here was one of the most visible Asian-Americans we\u2019ve ever seen running through the gamut of \u201990s and 2000s Asian-male hair, and doing so fearlessly under the bright lights of stadiums across North America. Announcers have no idea what to make of him. Lin has been largely coy about his intentions. And at least one opposing defender got poked in the eyeball with a well-placed mohawk spike. \n\nHair is what you fuck with when you\u2019re trying to find yourself. It is also not something you play around with unless you\u2019re feeling good and having fun; lest we forget, Jeremy Lin having fun is what made Linsanity possible in the first place. So I called him up and asked him about his hair.\n\n\n\nI don\u2019t know how much your PR folks told you about my pitch to them, but I think this season you\u2019ve worn every hairstyle I had growing up in SoCal\u2014the shaved sides, the dorky bowl cut, the spikes done up with the tub of L.A. Looks bubble gel...Nice. \n\nDoesn\u2019t that stuff sting when it gets in your eyes when you&amp;#39;re playing? What\u2019s your secret? Yeah, you just shove the gel, so mine stays up. Once I get it up, it doesn&amp;#39;t bother me at all. It never comes down.\n\nWhat kind of gel are you using?I use Spiker from the brand J-O-I-C-O. I don&amp;#39;t know how to pronounce it.\n\nAre they your unofficial sponsor for the season? Nah, I just use that gel. I don&amp;#39;t have a sponsorship or anything with them. Actually, I&amp;#39;m not even\u2014I think they know I use their gel.\n\nDo you just take a tub with you on the road wherever you go at this point? They&amp;#39;re in small bottles, so I might take one. One bottle will last me probably, like...seven to ten games.  \n\nLast week you had a big game against the Cavs when you wore the side-swept look. When you have a really good game like that, do you feel more inclined to wear your hair like that more? Does superstition factor in at all?Actually, no, probably the opposite. Regardless of how I play, I just like changing it up all the time. It&amp;#39;s funny because earlier in the year, people would be like, &amp;quot;Oh, you gotta do this style if you played well,&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;you gotta do that style if you played well.&amp;quot; But I&amp;#39;m actually even more inclined to [re-wear] a style that let&amp;#39;s say I didn&amp;#39;t play well on so I can, uh, rectify the situation. [laughs] But no real superstition. I just do whatever.\n\n&amp;quot;I had a mushroom cut when I was a little kid growing up. And I pretty much had the standard Asian cut for all of high school and a faux hawk for, like, five years.&amp;quot;\n\nMy favorite one that you had was the mini man bun that you pulled back a little bit. Is there anything you won&amp;#39;t do? Would you rock cornrows? Would you dye your hair blond and go full Super Saiyan?I&amp;#39;m about to do a little bit of everything. I&amp;#39;m just getting started and have a lot of other things I wanna do, but it&amp;#39;s not long enough right now.\n\nHow long are you trying to grow it?I haven&amp;#39;t decided yet, but it&amp;#39;ll probably be pretty long at some point. \n\nThe last few seasons with the Rockets and Lakers have been a little more tumultuous for your career, but you seem to have found this stable role in Charlotte where you&amp;#39;re right at home. I can\u2019t help but notice that now your hair&amp;#39;s all crazy...[laughs]\n\n...can you indulge me and pretend there&amp;#39;s a deeper meaning here?I think this just may be a sign of where I&amp;#39;m at. Like, personally, just being able to enjoy everything a little more. I think when I was younger, I probably wouldn&amp;#39;t have been so free or loose with my hair, or whatever it might be. I think at this point I&amp;#39;m just really in a place where I feel like I&amp;#39;m\u2026 I&amp;#39;m... [pauses] I&amp;#39;m able to enjoy and appreciate God&amp;#39;s blessing in putting me here in the NBA, versus in years past [when I wasn&amp;#39;t] really able to enjoy that \u2019cause I was so fixated on what I needed to do or accomplish. So I think the whole hair thing is just an example of that.\n\nHave your parents said anything about it to you?I&amp;#39;ve definitely had several stern conversations with my parents. Once they realized that it wasn&amp;#39;t having any effect on me, they kind of gave up.\n\nSo you didn&amp;#39;t have any of these haircuts growing up? I had a mushroom cut when I was a little kid growing up. And I pretty much had the standard Asian cut for all of high school and a faux hawk for, like, five years. \n\n\n\nWhen you go in the locker room before a game, do you have your mind made up already on how you\u2019re going to wear your hair? Or do you wing it?The only time where I&amp;#39;ll have it planned out before is if someone requests it. So, like, when I go to D.C., my friend in D.C. will want me to do this style, but when I go home, one of my homies from home will want me to do this style. So I just change it up based on whatever city I&amp;#39;m playing in. If there&amp;#39;s a friend there that&amp;#39;ll specifically want something, I&amp;#39;ll do it. If not, then I&amp;#39;ll just figure it out and do whatever I feel like. \n\nSometimes\u2014a lot of times\u2014I ask Spencer Hawes. He makes a lot of the decisions on what I should do, and he gives me a lot of pointers. So if I&amp;#39;m ever at a point where I really don&amp;#39;t know what to do and I don&amp;#39;t have any friends at that city, he&amp;#39;ll usually be like, &amp;quot;Alright, do this,&amp;quot; and that&amp;#39;s what I might end up doing.\n\nHas he ever requested anything and you&amp;#39;re like, &amp;quot;Nah, dog, I&amp;#39;m not gonna touch that?&amp;quot;He requested the side part, which I refused to do for a while, but then I ended up doing it.  \n\nWhy were you so against the side part?Oh, not the side part. The middle part.\n\nOh, like the Boy Meets World \u201990s joint or whatever.Yeah, exactly.\n\nDude, that&amp;#39;s coming back this year! I don&amp;#39;t know, I think you should think about rocking it more.We&amp;#39;ll see, we&amp;#39;ll see.\n\nIs there anything we can expect for your next game against the Wizards? I think I&amp;#39;m gonna go mohawk \u2019cause I haven&amp;#39;t done it in a while. I mean, a big reason I haven&amp;#39;t done it is I ran out of gel on the road trip, so tonight I&amp;#39;ll probably just do the mohawk \u2019cause I got more gel.\n\n[Ed. note: He went with the side part.] \n\nDo you feel like having the offensive weapon that is your spiky mohawk makes you bolder offensively? No, but it allows the refs to see if I get fouled a little more clearly.\n\n[laughs] Because it waves a little when you get hit? Helps you get noticed?Exactly."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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