This is part two of my tell-all oral history which goes into the gritty, unsavory details of the NBA’s most polarizing hairstyle.
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RAY YOUNG: When Trae was a junior in high school, I caught a glimpse of his scalp through his hair. That’s when I knew it was over. That’s when his hair obituary started to be written.
DR. NATALIE CHRISTENSEN (Trichologist, Mayo Clinic): It is not uncommon for young men the age of sixteen to start showing signs of hair loss. While there are no treatments to reliably grow back hair that has been lost, there are ways to prevent further loss. I also have a bunch of hats in my office that patients can take home with them.
TRAE YOUNG: My dad had some kind of hair loss obsession that came out while I was in high school. I’m like, dad, it’s fine, my hair’s just naturally a bit thin and wispy. But then I would open up a box of Rogaine for Christmas every year even though he was the one who really needed it.
JOSH WEXTON (Trae Young’s High-School Teammate): Trae’s hair was a bit goofy, but it just made it more embarrassing for the other team. Like, “how did that short guy with the goofy hair drop forty on us?,” that kind of thing.
TRAE YOUNG: I was getting some attention from scouts by my junior year. People were saying, hey, maybe Trae’s gonna make it to the league. Girls were all over me. I had five girlfriends at once and they all knew each other but none of them cared. I’d like to see Lou [Williams] pull that off.
CAITLYN YOUNG: Sometimes I would hear weird laughter coming from the wall between my and Trae’s bedrooms, but when I would go tell him to put his phone away and stop talking to his girlfriends, he was always asleep.
GUUHL K’MAARNOTH (Hair Gremlin): Hair Gremlins are misunderstood. Yes, we steal the hair off people’s heads to use for our own nefarious purposes, and yes, we giggle while doing it, but it’s not like we have any choice in the matter. The Cosmic Hair God, [name not able to be uttered by any human tongue nor rendered by any human alphabet], commands us. As His creation, we are compelled to obey His will.
RAY YOUNG: When Trae started getting a lot of attention nationally during his freshman year at Oklahoma, I was like, please God, let them go easy on this poor kid and his tragic hair. But they didn’t go easy on him. They never do. The bright lights in college arenas didn’t help either.
TRAE YOUNG: I was just focused 100% on basketball. I blocked out all the other noise. None of it was important. People can say what they want, but that doesn’t mean I have to listen.
LON KRUGER (Head Coach, University of Oklahoma Men’s Basketball): It became obvious pretty quickly that we were only going to have Trae for one season. The allure of an NBA payday was too much. With all that money you could buy as many wigs as you wanted. Or a hat.
TRAE YOUNG: Declaring for the draft was a no-brainer for me.
RAY YOUNG: There’s a lot of balding stars in the NBA. LeBron, KD, that Caruso kid. Ginobili’s probably still around in some capacity. So I knew that Trae would have the support network he needed. A support network he couldn’t get in college where all this teammates are still young and have hair.
LeBron James (Balding): You know how many people call me “LeBald James”? Trae’s got it easy. If somebody called him “Bald Young” nobody would know who you were talking about.
GUUHL K’MAARNOTH: Hair Gremlins usually operate invisibly, but lately I’ve been manifesting my corporeal form just to mess with Trae. He probably thinks he’s going insane. The only NBA player to speak out publicly against us was Jason Smith. That reminds me, he’s overdue for a visit.
TRAE YOUNG: There’s that joke about the lollipop that’s been going around on Twitter. I just laugh it off.
LOLLIPOP THAT WAS DROPPED ON THE FLOOR OF A BARBERSHOP: I do not appreciate the comparisons between myself and the appearance of Trae Young’s head.
RAY YOUNG: Trae’s got a weird-shaped head, so cutting it all off wouldn’t work either. He’s cursed. And it’s my fault.
CANDICE YOUNG: I’ll love my little baby boy no matter what he looks like.
MICHAEL PORTER JR. (Denver Nuggets Forward and Trae Young’s Personal Friend): He thinks he has the best haircut — seriously. He’s always in the mirror trying to get it right, and I’m just like, “Dude, it’s over. I’m sorry.” He thinks it’s so fresh. It’s not.
RAY YOUNG: Hair transplant technology is coming along. But it would be like LeBron and his hair plugs. Nobody would believe it was real hair.
TRAE YOUNG: Do I wish my hair looked better? Yeah, I do. But at the end of the day, I’m going to make hundreds of millions of dollars in my career, and everybody making fun of me, they’re going to wake up tomorrow with the same problems they had the day before.