His beard is gone, but Harrison Barnes hopes what the Kings learned will last

June 06, 2024

It wasn’t supposed to be a playoff beard.

Harrison Barnes simply was not going to shave until the Kings reached .500.

That was last December.

At one point the Kings were 12-14, so that seemed like a safe bet.

Wrong. Only recently did Barnes shave his beard, after letting it grow through the NBA restart, as his “until the Kings reached .500” pledge became a promise to not let a razor touch his face until the Kings made the playoffs or the season ended.

Sacramento’s season ended Aug. 13, allowing Barnes to turn the journey of growing his .500-or-bust beard into a partnership with Schick. Barnes posted the video on Instagram, and he got his usual look back.

“Oh, man, no I didn’t,” Barnes said when asked whether he could have envisioned not shaving for about nine months.”Honestly, when I initially said that I thought it was going to be three, four games I was going to be doing it. Then a hiatus, the bubble, Orlando, all that happened.”

The real question is how Barnes’ wife, Brittany, felt about this and was she happier than Barnes to see him finally shave.

“I was definitely happier when it was completely gone,” Barnes said.

What inspired Barnes’ declaration to go without shaving was his confidence in the Kings and their ability to turn around a bad start to the season. The Kings had gone 12-9 since an 0-5 start to the season, and reaching .500 felt like a reasonable goal, given the Kings had found a measure of positive momentum.

The Kings were managing to win games without point guard De’Aaron Fox, and with his return imminent, why wouldn’t the team believe its good fortunes would continue?

“I felt that looking around, even when I got here last year with the trade or in training camp at the beginning of the year, we had all the talent that we needed, that wasn’t an issue,” Barnes said. “I’ve been on teams where we weren’t as deep, or we didn’t have enough talent to do the things other teams could do. For us, it was about finding that consistency.”

The Kings would go 3-15 over their next 18 games.

So much for a neatly groomed Barnes, who would begin sporting a beard he would acknowledge “plateaued” rather than develop into a full beard.

Barnes said he told teammate Harry Giles that he wished he would have given himself the wiggle room to at least get a lineup to keep his hairline intact. So Barnes would spend the next few months showing up to games dressed in suits, yet clearly in need of a barber. But as his hair grew longer, the Kings’ game eventually became stronger. Sacramento won 13 of 20 before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down play.

“I feel like before the shutdown we were starting to find that (consistency),” Barnes said. “Did we pick up where we left off in the bubble? Absolutely not.”

Sacramento lost its first three games in the bubble, looking out of sorts on offense and playing defense as if it was optional and fizzling given how much the team talked about wanting to make the playoffs. The Kings were 1-5 in the bubble before they won their final two games with nothing on the line.

“I think if we’re all being honest with ourselves I don’t know if we prepared for the first game or if we prepared for the bubble experience to hit the ground running,” Barnes said. “I think we, I don’t want to say eased into it, but it took a little time to find our collective group. We had guys who had big games, we had moments where things clicked.

“But when we’re looking at 48 minutes, when we’re looking at game after game, we didn’t collectively bring that and I think in that type of environment, when you look at how the teams are playing in the bubble now, the teams that are playing well are the teams that hit the ground running and were already in that groove. Unfortunately, we didn’t meet that challenge.”

The Kings had four players test positive for the coronavirus, including Barnes. He arrived in Orlando for the restart in time for one scrimmage and was in the starting lineup for the first game of the restart against San Antonio. He would later take responsibility for the Kings looking ill-prepared. Being one of the players on the team with playoff and championship experience, Barnes said it was on him to help hold the team to a higher standard.

But is that fair given Barnes missed most of the practices leading up to the restart because of COVID-19?

That doesn’t include the mental stress of Barnes knowing his wife and mother also had the coronavirus, with his wife suffering the worst. Barnes said everyone is fine now and past their bouts with COVID-19.

“I don’t want to make excuses and say COVID was the reason that slowed me down or things like that,” Barnes said. “Every game that went by I felt better and better. I don’t know if that was the lack of training camp or not being able to get into the gym for a period of time, but I was not at my best in the first game, unfortunately, and I think that affected our team.”

Barnes, however, does believe the bubble experience was good for the Kings, even if it ended with the team missing the playoffs. Players such as Fox and Buddy Hield have never experienced the NBA postseason. The restart was a glimpse at what the playoffs might be like if the Kings can end their 14-year streak of missing the playoffs next season or any time in the near future.

“I think a lot of it is what do we have in place that guys can fall back on?” Barnes said. “When the pressure is up, we’re in a situation, our offense is getting stalled out and things like that, do we have the trust in each other, do we have the trust in the system to be able to go out and execute through those times. I think a lot of times, collectively we weren’t there and I think that was a great learning experience for us to go through that. To see what things do we need to improve on, what things do we need to shore up for next season, whenever that’ll be, whatever the team looks likes and all that moving forward.”

If anything, one thing the Kings need to take away from the restart is how to prepare. Discipline, knowing the opponent’s tendencies and being locked in mentally has to be the norm. Most of the restart, that kind of preparation looked to be the exception. Barnes said “the attention to detail” is a big takeaway for the Kings as a group.

“Every one of those games were highly scouted, they knew our calls, they knew our tendencies, they knew everything that was going to happen,” Barnes said. “They knew what we were going to do and then it becomes a chess match. Who’s going to impose their will on the other team? And a lot of times we were playing catch up on that front so I think that although we didn’t make the playoffs, it was a playoff-style atmosphere and I think guys are understanding a lot of the principles that we talked about, whether in training camp or in the season, just that different level of intensity that the postseason has.”

Those messages have to translate onto the court, but a message has already been sent from owner Vivek Ranadive to the front office. General manager Vlade Divac resigned rather than concede final basketball decisions to team adviser and 2003 NBA Executive of the Year Joe Dumars. Assistant general manager Peja Stojakovic is also out, resigning Aug. 15, a day after Divac.

The roster was put together by Divac and there are no certainties about whom the next leader of the front office would like to keep.

“This is a business, and when you don’t win, changes happen,” Barnes said. “But the focus for us as a unit is every year that you begin a season there is no guarantee that group, that team of 17 guys, that coaching staff, will finish the year. You have to be ultra-focused in that period of time to maximize what you have. You can always say ‘I wish I had this, I wish I had that,’ but at the end of the day, all of that is out of our control. What we can control is the team we have on the court at that time, and if we win, everything else is taken care of.”

Barnes will have to wait to see what the next step is for the Kings and the front office, but he’s not waiting or taking a break from his passion to help others away from the court. Barnes has been an integral part of the NBA’s push for racial and social justice. Barnes donated $25,000 to a social cause for each game of the restart and is involved in programs to register voters in addition to helping feeding families in need.

Six years later and we haven’t forgotten that Michael Brown should still be here today. $25K to @cfcfund is in memory of him today and forever. #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/kcqM0NoFcq

— Harrison Barnes (@hbarnes) August 9, 2020

Barnes said that part of his life will not slow down. He plans to continue learning more about the issues so he can do more to help.

“Whether it’s reading books, whether it’s tuning in to all the different conversations that are happening online with authors, activists, people in different fields,” Barnes said. “Just trying to get as much information as I can continue to try and use my platform to speak and press for solutions.

“‘Say Their Names’ was important to me to have on the back of my jersey for the games in Orlando. Spreading the message doesn’t stop just because we’re no longer playing. There’s still a bigger movement going on outside of the court even when the season concludes. Continuing to use our voices is very important.”

(Photo: Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images)

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