Grizzlies guard proclaims love of 'Phineas and Ferb' with leg tattoo
Move over, Kevin Durant and 2Pac: there’s a new amazing NBA leg tattoo to celebrate. Behold the get-away stick of once-and-future Memphis Grizzlies guard Tony Wroten, which now features a sizable portrait of the titular characters of the popular Disney Channel/Disney XD cartoon “Phineas and Ferb.”
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The leg piece depicts the cartoon stepbrothers — most frequently seen trying to fill up the days during their summer vacations by building preposterously complicated and giant things, then trying to avoid getting busted by Phineas’ older sister, Candace — high-fiving in front of a street sign at the intersection of “Valley” and “Loe.” The guess here is that “Valley” represents Rainier Valley, the section of Seattle where Wroten (and many other successful basketball players) grew up, and that “Loe” is the pet acronym that adorns the 23-year-old Wroten’s social-media handles and has served as something of a life motto since his high school days: “Loyalty over everything.”
Apparently, much like Iman Shumpert’s skin-memorializing love of Johnny Bravo, Wroten’s artistic shout-out to Phineas and Ferb comes from a deep, abiding respect for what the show and its characters have given him over the years.
“They’d never understand how fascinated I am with this show,” he wrote in the caption of his Instagram photo. “Crazy how much you can learn from things and apply things you see/hear into your daily lyfe. #WorkInProgress. #MyFavoriteCartoon”
And, if you’re keeping score at home, Wroten appears to identify more with Ferb:
FERB; Very rarely speaks, but is not actually shallow as others would assume. He is very courageous and has the ability to think quickly and stay calm in the midst of desperate scenarios.
You can see why the ability to think quickly and stay calm would be attractive to a young point guard still learning how to adapt his physical gifts to elite NBA opposition. Ditto for why the capacity to keep cool “in the midst of desperate scenarios” would resonate with a player who has twice undergone surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, who has been limited by injury and opportunity to just 145 NBA appearances over four seasons, and who has bounced to four teams — well, three, since this is his second stint with the Grizz — since entering the NBA in the 2012 draft.
As gifted as the 6-foot-6 Wroten is, and as confident as you have to be to reach the best league in the world, all those setbacks and false starts must lead to some pretty tough moments at times. If what helps keep you moving to the next step is a cartoon where smart stepbrothers build stuff, well, there are worse habits to pick up.
Wroten’s Instagram post suggests that the outline depicted is just the beginning of the piece: “Day 1 of 3. Almost Done. Sheeshhhhhh.” Here’s hoping he finds some room to get Perry in there. No huge multi-day tattoo project is truly complete until it includes a secret-agent platypus, after all.
Hat-tip to r/NBA.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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