It’s Drake Night in Toronto, and the Raptors are enduring an early-season shellacking courtesy of the Golden State Warriors. The man of the hour, Drake himself, sits courtside and lobs taunts at the visitors from the West Coast. The baby-faced rapper and the Splash Brothers — Steph Curry and Klay Thompson — have something besides trash talk in common. They all sport the same kind of haircut: the low fade.
The low fade is giving the classic high-and-tight look a run for its money as the new favorite style of many NBA players and fans, and given its prevalence on the hardwood, it’s a fair bet the cut will be making its way to city streets. At the start of last season, Curry’s hair was tightly shaved. But as the Warriors began their historic though ultimately disappointing run, Curry began to draw power from his curls. He left a few centimeters of fun on top and faded down to clean skin around the base of his skull. There’s little doubt that Curry’s MVP season — his second in a row — helped popularize the style.
In this campaign, Blake Griffin of the Clippers is rocking a fresh low fade, and so is Phoenix’s Devin Booker, a 20-year-old rookie who is widely touted as the future of the game. (No pressure.) Add to the low-fade chorus the Bucks’ 21-year-old jolly Greek giant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and the tornado from Oklahoma City, Russell Westbrook, and you’re beginning to hear a serious style statement by the younger NBA generation. “It used to be all about tapers and the all-even, but now the low fade is starting to emerge in the NBA and in entertainment, so everyone wants to emulate what they see,” says John Solis of Legends Barbershop in Los Angeles, a longtime haunt of NBA and Hollywood stars.
