Iman Shumpert has provided an explanation for buzzing off his signature high top: To punish himself for getting distracted from his goal of winning a championship with the Knicks.
Shumpert first appeared with the new close-cropped hairdo on Oct. 14. In an artsy video haircut/confessional titled “Iman Shumpert New Beginnings,” posted Tuesday, the 23-year-old guard explains how a terrible preseason game “in Boston” led to some soul-searching.
“For the first time since I can remember playing basketball, I let so much stuff in the outside world, things that are going on in my life, affect me so much,” he says. “I wasn’t playing that game to win. I was trying to beat my problems.
“And I think the perfect way to punish myself is to take my hair, just to end that whole separation of trying to be cool or trying to separate myself so that I look different.”
The video contains a clip of Shumpert dunking against the Celtics in a preseason game in Providence, R.I., on Oct. 9. The Knicks won that game, and Shumpert scored 18 points on perfect 7-for-7 shooting. Three days later, against the Celtics in Manchester, N.H., Shumpert shot 2-for-9 and scored just six points as the Knicks lost by 30.
“My one goal is to get my ring,” he says. “That’s to play hard and to play to win and to play amongst my teammates, play within my team, within my coaches, within my organization, within the city that I play in. Never, ever ever put myself outside the circle ever again.”
Another little morsel from the video: Shumpert is seen with the old hair style on his avatar in the video game “2K14” … playing against the rival Brooklyn Nets.