Jason Terry is bringing his tattoo tradition with him to Brooklyn.
Terry, who has famously gotten tattoos when playing for the Mavericks and Celtics, said Tuesday morning that he’ll be getting another one by the time the season opens on Oct. 30 in Cleveland.
“BK All Day,” Terry said with a smile at a community event in Brooklyn. “You heard it here first.”
Terry said the tattoo will be unveiled on Opening Night, but declined to say where he’ll be getting it placed on his body.
“You’ll see,” he said, still smiling.
Terry first made news with his tattoo selections back in 2011, when he got a tattoo of the Larry O’Brien Trophy — given each year to the NBA champion — prior to the start of the 2010-11 season. The Mavericks went on to complete a magical playoff run, culminating with an upset of the heavily favored Miami Heat in LeBron James’ first season on South Beach to win the title.
Then, after joining the Celtics as a free agent last summer, Terry unveiled a new tattoo on his left arm, one of the Celtics’ mascot that, instead of twirling a basketball on its finger, was instead holding up the Larry O’Brien trophy. That championship prediction proved to be less successful than his one in Dallas, as the Celtics wound up losing in the first round in six games to the Knicks.
But despite Terry’s short stint in Boston, one that ended when he was traded to Brooklyn this summer along with Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, Terry said he had no plans to get remove or redo his Boston tattoo.
“I’m a superstitious guy, and every community I come involved with, I just take it on. That’s what the tattoo symbolizes. It means something to me. Being a Boston Celtic, that means something. I’ve been blessed and fortunate to play for a lot of great franchises, and [Brooklyn] is just another one.”
Since being acquired by the Nets in the blockbuster trade earlier this summer, Terry has been in the news a few times thanks to his ongoing back-and-forth with Knicks guard J.R. Smith, giving even more juice to the burgeoning rivalry between the city’s two NBA teams. And while the Nets have made it clear their ultimate goal this season is to win the franchise’s first NBA championship, Terry said that to get there the Nets first have to win the Atlantic Division title, which would mean dethroning the defending-champion Knicks.
“Well, for us it’s line them up,” Terry said. “Whoever you put out in front of us, we want to beat them. Our goal is to win a championship, and we want to take it step by step. First thing is you have to win your division. You win your division and that positions you for home-court advantage, and then you just take it round by round.
“We understand that, and we understand it’s going to be a long season. It just so happens that we have to play them four times, and they’re just a few blocks away from us, so that’s going to be an intense rivalry. But for guys like myself, Kevin and Paul, who have been in this league for so long, almost any given night is a rivalry for us. You’ve got Chicago, San Antonio, when I go back to Dallas, Boston? Are you kidding me? Every game is going to be intense, and we’re just excited and ready for the challenge.”
And while it all may be in fun, Terry couldn’t resist taking another shot at the Knicks while discussing why he chose to live in New Jersey near the team’s practice facility instead of somewhere in the city.
“I’m staying on the Jersey side,” he said, before adding with a smile, “I didn’t want to get too close to the Knicks. I wanted to be over on that side, focused and next to the practice facility, and then on game days we’ll make our way over here.”