Kings forward Harrison Barnes finally shaves sub-.500 beard in Instagram razor promo
Kings forward Harrison Barnes proved to be a man of his word. Now he’s also a man with a freshly shaven face.
Eight long months after vowing not to shave or cut his hair unless the Kings achieved a .500 record, Barnes took to Instagram Tuesday to shear off that scraggly beard in an advertisement for Schick Hydro. At the end of the 90-second video, Barnes is seen sporting a fresh haircut and his familiar goatee.
“250 days ago I promised I wasn’t shaving until we either hit .500 or finished the season,” Barnes said on Instagram. “No one could have predicted what would come next. After several crazy months I am thrilled to have teamed up with @schickhyrdo to get my facial hair back to my signature style and start feeling like myself again.”
Barnes made his promise back in December. The move was meant to show faith in his squad, but the Kings went into a tailspin, losing eight games in a row to fall 10 games under .500.
“We took a little detour since then, but I’m a man of my word, so the only way it gets cut is if we get to .500 or the season’s over,” Barnes told The Sacramento Bee in February.
It didn’t take long for the sub-.500 beard to become one of the league’s absolute worst, a patchy thicket of uneven, unshaped, unkempt facial hair with random bald spots. The Kings got within seven games of .500 before the NBA season was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic in March, but they never got any closer. They finished 31-41, missing the playoffs for the 14th year in a row, the longest active playoff drought in the NBA.
When asked about the beard earlier this season, Kings coach Luke Walton applauded the gesture from Barnes but wondered if he had sought permission from the powers that be.
“Did he clear that with his wife? Walton asked. “I like it. I like it. I’m not going to do it, but I like it.”
