Tale Of My Tattoo

DANIEL EWING

Clippers Guard

EWING GOT his first, a panther with the inscription king of the court on his right arm as a junior, at Willowridge ( Texas) High and hid it from his parents. Then his father saw it and got "so mad, he was at a loss for words," Ewing recalls. His next tat was of praying hands with the words count your blessings and his parents' names (Brenda and George)--which they only grudgingly accepted. "They weren't happy," Daniel says, "but they said at least this one had meaning."

CARLOS BOOZER

Jazz Forward

BOOZER HAS many tattoos, but his pi�ces de r�sistance are on his right and left biceps. His left shows a grizzly bear--an animal plentiful in Alaska, Boozer's home state--that appears to be clawing through his skin; his right depicts a basketball player in front of a skyline and a mountain, a reference, Boozer says, to his hometown of Juneau. Says Boozer, who's averaging 20.5 points, "I wanted something symbolizing my coming from somewhere small and making it somewhere big."

JOEL PRZYBILLA

Trail Blazers Center

THE 27-YEAR-OLD got a tattoo a year from age 18 to 21, then quit inking. On his right arm Przybilla honors shot blocking: Next to not in my house a player wags a finger--"Like Mutombo," he says--after rejecting a shot. Przybilla has praying hands on his left arm. His chest has a tat of a biblical message and another of a heart, flowers and his wife's name, Noelle. "It's my favorite." he says. "But the two on my chest are private. I'm glad they're covered when I play."