Kristaps Tanzingis: a Mavs Moneyball investigation

While watching the fourth quarter of the wild ride between the Mavericks and Jazz on Monday night I said to myself (not to anyone else, I’m very lonely) “Hey, Kristaps looks tan as hell tonight.” So, I headed to the Mavs Moneyball Slack to make the same observation. Nobody there indulged me, because my coworkers are adults and I am but a humble idiot.

BUT, when I mentioned the possibility of writing something about this phenomenon, my Lord and Savior, Matt Gilroy, said “Kirk’s asleep, so I say yes.” This is your fault, Kirk. You can’t ever afford to get sick and turn in early because Matt and Kevin will go wild. Totally normal night of @stumpstumpstump just churning out dumbest possible stuff with the full and complete blessing of acting editor @itsgrumpist.

[EIC’s note: These guys are lucky I was busy with a toddler at the time or I would have nixed it right away, but alas. So it’s actually my toddler’s fault. She’s probably not sorry. -RL]

ON TO THE INVESTIGATION:

Kristaps Porzingis is an All-Star. I mean, not this season, but he has been an All-Star before. He’s an All-Star in our hearts—you get it. So what do NBA players often do during the All-Star break when they have no league-mandated All-Star duties? They go to the beach, beach!

Everybody knows you can’t jump straight into fun in the sun without laying down a nice base tan first! Especially if you’re a pasty dude from the Baltic region of Northern Europe. Nobody likes a sunburn. And we definitely don’t want KP coming back from his break looking like the necks of all those dudes on The Outsider.

So I present to you exhibit 1 (and the sum total) of my evidence acquired in this investigation:

That’s a big man who’s been working on his tan! A young King preparing to spend several days shirtless on a boat or a boat-adjacent watercraft! We must stan.

The above photos are from January 31^st, February 5^th, and February 10^th; showing a steady progression in the depth and intensity of said tan. Is it possible that the lighting in the different shots make him appear differently? No, it isn’t, nerd. Well then maybe it’s possible that the photographers actually manually edit and tweak their photos before they upload them to Getty and USA Today. NAH, NO WAY MAN, THIS BOY IS A STRAIGHT-UP BRONZE BODY NOW.

Now that the tan has been definitively proven, in the second installment (There will be no second installment; I’ve probably already been fired) of this Mavs Moneyball investigation, I’ll attempt to determine whether we’re looking at the results of a spray tan or a long-ass tanning bed.