Ugly NBA Player Power Rankings

(Check out our updated Ugly NBA Player Power Rankings right here!)

MAMBINO has some traditions in its young year-long existence. The Instant Trade Analysis series, such a hit that Adele took notes, and our burning question series previewing the upcoming baseball and basketball seasons are two solid examples. But certainly my favorite has to be our arbitrary sports-related power rankings.

In case you're not familiar, we take some inane subject, like White American NBA players or Sports Movie Fictional Jerseys, and make a Marc Stein-style power rankings out of it. It's silly, ridiculous, sometimes borderline offensive and a complete waste of my time. However, I just can't get enough of makings lists that will distract me from paying attention to my girlfriend, working harder at my job or being a good son. Sorry for letting everyone down, but if you haven't seen this coming by now, it's really your fault. You're so selfish.

If you've been keeping up with MAMBINO at all, you'll notice our penchant for picking on Lakers forward Troy Murphy and his mangled face. No, Troy wasn't in a car accident or anything tragic; his mug has simply been marred by the ravages of time, life and unfortunately, birth. I like Murph, and appreciate what he adds to the Lakers, especially under the pretense of his veteran's minimum salary, but the truth is that he is an ugly dude. Don't feel bad for him though Mambinites - this guy is laughing at us all the way to the bank, having made nearly $80 million dollars in his career. I don't care if you look like your nose was broken seventeen times in a Punjabi Prison. You're still gonna git yours if you made $14 million last year.

So as a tribute my the winner of the Lakers' quasimodo look-alike competition, I present to you, the loyal MAMBINO audience, with our Ugly NBA Player Power Rankings.

In general, NBA players are freaks by nature. They're between 6'5" and 7' tall with disproportionate limbs flopping around like the salmon of San Juan Capistrano. They lumber about as if they're auditioning for the My Giant remake and often visibly wear the scars of physical battles on the hardwood. However, it takes a special kind of man that not only won the genetic lottery, but also looks like he won the "Get Dropkicked by that Kid from Glee's Wheelchair" lottery.

Though I find that I'm usually secure in my sexuality and can call a good looking man when I see him, I often have a hard time deciding if a man's looks can be saved by the skills of a good make-over artist. So I've brought in some consultants to help me decide if these tragic ogres have any chance of being re-introduced into society like Ty after Cher and Dionne got done with her. The "Hope for a makeover?" section features real quotes from friends of MAMBINO who have far more expertise in these matters than I.

Of course these rankings are completely subject to my own personal whims and judgment.

1. Chris Kaman

Like Chewbacca's mugshot

The unquestioned number one, perhaps without peer...in any arena, be it professional sports, or the animal kingdom. Chris Kaman is a pretty-talented player, even cracking our inaugural White American NBA Player Power Rankings. Even as much as I can disparage the unfortunate pile of flesh, bones and hair that's assembled into a crude sasquatch-like countenance, I can't dispute that he's a legitimate NBA center with skills. But he uggggggggggggly.

Most distinguishing feature: Wispy, seemingly bleached blonde hair that erases any trace of eyebrows and highlights his deep-set, cro-magnon-like eyes, that look like they're out of Ghostbusters.

Hope for a makeover?: "Oh God! He looks like an ogre or something! Umm..he should whiten his teeth, definitely lose all the face hair. I don't think he would ever actually be attractive though.


2. Greg Oden

Even for me, a human that rarely feels feelings, I actually am experiencing a sense of guilt making fun of Greg Oden. The guy is a modern day Job, made to suffer for reasons beyond my comprehension. He's had four major knee surgeries in 5 years, playing in only 82 games during that time span. In our small sample size watching him, he could have made a tremendous difference on the defensive side of the floor, and at 7-feet with his strength, the Blazers should be battling out with the Lakers and Andrew Bynum for Western Conference supremacy.

Sadly, the only thing Greg battles for daily is an understanding on why his face looks like if Shane Battier married a pug and had 7-foot tall freak babies that went to Ohio State. I've got to stop now. I'm going to Hell. The negative karmic energy I'm accruing is staggering.

Most distinguishing feature: In general, a face that makes me think that he was the basis for the book The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Hope for a makeover?: "Not that ugly--his face at least looks kind. Nothing you can do with his looks, though. So, actually...maybe put him under hopeless."

3. Chris Anderson

Chris is the only member of his illustrious panel that's actually climbing the rankings, not through the crapshoot of genetics, but rather through conscious, purposeful actions. Though not a naturally handsome man by any stretch of the imagination, Anderson has been able to escape the watchful eye of these rankings by being just another tall white guy with long arms. However, over time, he's aged like a fine wine, except the wine is fermented poo, the adjective is disgusting and the pretense for me writing this is hoping he never somehow reads MAMBINO.

Yes, the Birdman has turned an already dicey choice in appearance like tattoos, and somehow made a two-dimensional artform into three dimensions of sheer terror. Anderson looks so hideous that the producers of Oz turned him down because if you were to put a guy like that in a real prison he would literally kill everyone in it and there would be no show. Congrats Chris. On a list of guys that have the unfortunate privilege of nature taking a big honking crap on them, you've managed to surpass everyone by sheer force of will, effort and of course, drugs.

Most distinguishing feature: A collar around his entire freakin' neck in purple, yellow and green that reads "Free" and on the other side, "Bird". Jesus.

Hope for a makeover?: "Well, he can't get ALL his tattoos removed. He could stop doing his hair like he's Mark McGrath when Sugar Ray first hit it big."

 

4. Hedo Turkoglu

A mainstay on these power rankings if it had any type of history behind it. If you can believe it, Hedo's come a long way since his early 20's, rocking frosted tips and a lip full of pubic hair that he foolishly tried to call a goatee. Now he's merely a day laborer in the kingdom of NBA uggos, instead of its crowned monarch.

Most distinguishing feature: That the skin on his skull looks like it's more heavily influenced by gravity than his bone structure. He's wearing a face that looks like a melted popsicle in the Arizona heat.

Hope for a makeover?: "Shave all the facial hair, grow his hair a little longer and put product in it. I think he could definitely improve." AND "He needs an eye lift. He's not ugly, he just looks sad"

5. Joakim Noah 

God, where to even begin? I think in order to fully appreciate the atrocity of nature that you see before you,  you've got to know where Mr. Noah came from in the first place.

Somehow, some way, Joakim was born straight from the fruits of Yanick Noah, former French Open winner and Cecilia Rodhe, Ms. Sweden 1978. Having a contest to name the most attractive woman in all of Sweden is like naming the nerdiest guy at Comic-Con; at that point, you're just showing off. Oh, but except at Comic-Con, no one wins. Everyone wins at the Ms. Sweden Contest.

Anyway, these two incredibly attractive humans somehow spawned this young man that more resembles an angry hippie caveman than he does a NBA player. Whether it be his haircut he got at Lillith Fair, the facial hair that even I mock or the gap between his teeth that often double as uprights in Gainesville, Joakim makes me cringe every time he takes the court.

Most distinguishing feature: His long tresses of curly hair that he delicately wraps into knots, as if Stevie Wonder prepped it. With his feet.

Hope for a makeover?: "I think if Joakim Noah shaved his head and his face..and got his eyebrows shaped he could improve. He probably wouldn't be HOT, but he'd be better. He makes me think of when Kevin Federline was totally cleaned up for a magazine like 5 years ago. Hold on let me see if I can find it...Here!"

6. Byron Mullens

As if Byron didn't have enough trouble in his young life looking like the creature from Splice, he went by the name BJ until a couple years ago. It's as if the two lobes of his brain are working as far apart from each other as his eyes are.

At 7 feet tall, Mullens' rangy body really sets the tone for messy high school symphony that is his face. It's almost like a 6 year-old was playing God and knew that a human needed a nose, mouth, eyes, eyebrows and ears, and knew the general layout of a face, but then just threw it together like a, well, 6 year-old. Thus, BJ Mullens, who's ugly mug certainly looks like God colored outside the lines. Maybe the only time I'll ever say that a BJ is no good.

Most distinguishing feature: It's like both of his eyes are searching for each other on his face, but then kind of got lost, sparked up a J and just stayed put because of laziness.

Hope for a makeover?: "He needs to turn his unibrow in to two separate eye brows...but I don't think there's much else to do."

7. Troy Murphy

Again, it's hard to me to raise such an awful claim over any Laker, no matter if he's a dreamboat like our  recently-traded Luke Walton or dog-bitten, cornea-searing ugg-o like Murph. Sometimes he photographs well, but on the whole, I'm happy that coach Mike Brown only plays him for 14 minutes a game. I can't take much more than that.

Most distinguishing feature: A nose that, again, looks like it's been broken seventeen times in a Punjabi Prison.

Hope for a makeover?: "Rhinoplasty might save him."

8. Luis Scola

I didn't include Luis in my first draft of Ugly NBA Player Power Rankings, but BockerKnocker insisted, saying "Are you kidding me, bro? You need to google Luis Scola again. He's not just ugly, he's first-team All-NBA ugly." So I googled him again. And I stand corrected.

At first, I thought that maybe Luis was just another unshaven greasy dude from Argentina. But under examination with a fine tooth comb, I found that same comb ground down into a rugged piece of plastic by the sheer roughness of Scola's face. At first I felt like writing that Luis has a boxer's mug, but I quickly realized how disrespectful that is to guys like Ricky Hatton and Manny Pacquiao, who even with their wrecked features, still shudder at the thought of Scola.

Most distinguishing feature: His boxer's mug, but only if the human boxer was fighting in the movie Real Steel. Combined with the hair that looks like he took a bath next to a BP tanker, Scola certainly is, as BockerKnocker said, first-team All-NBA Ugly.

And just for shits...

FIRST-TEAM ALL-NBA UGLY
G: Kevin Martin, Delonte West
F: Hedo Turkoglu, Chris Anderson
C: Chris Kaman

Hope for a makeover?: "It looks like he's wearing a wig. And he needs less pointy eyebrows."


9. Mike Miller

Last offseason, Mike Miller signed with the Miami Heat for around $30 million dollars, and along with LeBron, Wade and Bosh, many thought he'd be the last puzzle piece needed to pick up the scraps, hit some three-balls and turn the Heat into true championship contention. Sadly, the only scraps that Miller has picked up are the ones I suspect he eats for dinner, as a gigantic anthropomorphic pig-man.

There is so much wrong with Mike Miller's general appearance that even as I am the one writing this, it still shocks me to think that this is an improvement. Every choice he's made, from his tats, the hair atop his head to that laying on his face, he's just a complete mess.

You know what happens when you get a photocopy of a photocopy? Yes, that's what happened when God photocopied Mike Miller. You got BJ Mullens.

Most distinguishing feature: Good lord. Um, I guess it'd be the aforementioned anthropomorphic pig-man face, but you could really go in seventeen directions with this. Like my gag reflex right about now after writing about 9 of these guys.

Hope for a makeover?: "He would need veneers for sure. Get rid of the facial hair and fix the sunken eyes. A little botox wouldn’t kill him either."

10. Tayshaun Prince

I really like Tayshaun as a player. One of the only guys in the league that can regularly check Kobe, Tay has made a career of being a defensive stalwart, while being able to hit the open jumper and slashing to the rim with deadly effectiveness. Even though his long arms and lanky frame gives him an advantage as a basketball player, it really puts him at a severe advantage as a member of society that can escape Darwinism and find a mate to copulate with.

Most distinguishing feature: Shoulders and arms that make him look like he's perpetually wearing suspenders. Tayshaun resembles a 11th grade chemistry teacher that could reach any beaker in the classroom

Hope for a makeover?: "Eh, I don't know if there's anything that can be done. He's not that hideous, he just has a strange expression."

Disgusting Mentions: Kevin Martin, Joel Anthony, Al Jefferson, Memhet Okur, Delonte West and...

Anthony Davis: I didn't include him on here because he isn't on a professional team yet, nor has he even officially declared for the draft, but damn bro, your time is coming. Most prominently it looks like Davis is preparing early for his October 2012 Frieda Calo costume. I mean, there's a bridge of hair leading from one eye to the other! It looks so sturdy that a Chinese rail worker from 1870 would compliment on him his fine handy-work. He's working this look with his eyes where he seems perpetually surprised! Oh God. Listen, he can rack up like 15 boards per game RIGHT NOW, but all the hustle in the world isn't going to make this man handsome. I mean, the million dollar contract will, but not, you know, his face. 

There you go, Ugly NBA Player Power Rankings, v. 1.0. Let us know if you agree or disagree. But remember everyone, there are no winners or losers here. As ugly as these chumps are, they could buy you. Straight up. 

Like these power rankings? Check out a couple of our others: 

White American NBA Player Power Rankings v. 1.0

White American NBA Player Power Rankings v. 2.0

Fictional Sports Movie Jersey Power Rankings