Pau Gasol and the Most Awkward Faces in NBA History

It seems that everyone with an opinion on anything NBA-related also has something to chime in on when you start talking about ugly basketball players. Popeye Jones and Sam Cassell are usually mentioned near the top of anyone's list, while countless others can be included.

However, on another level, there are players out there who aren't necessarily considered ugly but are definitely strange-looking players. At best, there is a very fine line between ugly and strange, awkward-looking faces, with that line being trampled over all the time.

There are players out there, like Pau Gasol, who resemble animals (Gasol is a llama, in case nobody out there was aware), while others just have faces that make you take a second look—not because it's a horrifying mug, but because there's just something about their face that leaves you intrigued.

Luckily for a lot of the players on this list, they spent years in the NBA to supplement themselves with enough money to not give a damn what people say about them.

Here are the strangest, most awkward-looking faces in NBA history.

Shelden Williams

Is it just me, or does it seem like the muscles in Shelden Williams' face are giving up?

I swear when he started in the NBA, he had far less forehead (insert obligatory "five-head" joke), and his eyes, nose and mouth weren't all bunched up near the bottom of his face.

Maybe after playing for seven teams in fewer than six years, he's just kind of going through the motions, and even his face is too tired to hold itself up.

Andrei Kirilenko

Some people have incredibly round heads, others have square or trapezoidal heads, but Andrei Kirilenko is rocking a head with too many corners to count.

Between his fishhook-swooped chin, his long, craning nose and his pronounced brow hiding his eyes in constant shadow, Kirilenko is starting to look like some kind of extremely rare bird.

Scottie Pippen

I'm not sure what it is, but Scottie Pippen has looked more and more feminine ever since he retired.

Perhaps he always had those high cheekbones and strong yet dainty features, but I'm just now noticing them as he's less and less visible.

He's got the face of a very sharp, distinguished woman.

Tyrone Hill

There was always something about Tyrone Hill that just seemed to be a bit off.

I said earlier that there's a fine line between interesting-looking and ugly. Well, Hill tramples all over that line and dances a little jig on it.

I can't decide if Hill looks more like his skull is trying to escape from the rest of his body or if he's just got an oddly shaped head.

All I know is that he's a bit of a fright to look at.

Dennis Rodman

C'mon now, you didn't think a person can start this list and leave out the king of strange faces, did you?

Dennis Rodman is the all-time champion when it comes to appearance-changing in basketball, with his multi-colored hair, piercings all over his head and swagger that came along with it.

He always had a scowl on his face that said, "Yeah, I may have rainbow-colored hair, but I'm going to beat the crap out of you with this rainbow on my head."

Joakim Noah

A quick shave, and suddenly Joakim Noah starts to look like the girl you shouldn't have taken home from the bar last night.

Bucks fans had it right—dude looks like a lady.

What really confuses me is the rest of Noah's family.

Here, you have a picture of Joakim hanging out with his mother and sister, both of whom are very attractive ladies. He must take after his father.

Pau Gasol

There's a lot going on with Pau Gasol's face to really take a look at, so we'd better get cracking here.

First, Gasol has those wild, staring eyes that tend to bulge out of his head when he's excited, angry, happy, constipated or just looking at a pretty lady in the crowd.

Pair that with his expressive, bushy eyebrows and a beard that covers up a weak chin that would get lost in translation between face and neck were it not for that beard, and you've got yourself an interesting man.

What I'm curious about is how can his brother Marc end up looking like a lumberjack while he stands on the court looking like a llama?

Nick Van Exel

Over the past decade or so of watching basketball, I remember a lot of Nick Van Exel hanging around, and I can't recall one time where his eyes weren't bugging out of his head.

Perhaps he changed directions so quickly and ran so fast that he constantly had a gut-wrenching feeling in his stomach—like riding a roller coaster—and he was just constantly startled.

Chris Bosh

I would not say by any stretch that Chris Bosh is an ugly man.

I can say that this man annoys me to no end when he's playing basketball.

However, Miami's big man had one of the most interesting transformations I've ever been witness to when he shaved his head.

Back in Toronto, Bosh had the tight-cropped dreads and looked like—well, a raptor (actually, he kind of looks like Predator in that picture). Now that he's gone with a close-shaved head, he looks more like an ostrich. 

Somehow, with a simple shaving of the head, Bosh went from looking like a prehistoric lizard to a large, aggressive, flightless bird. Neat.

Tom Chambers

I'm not sure how it happened or why he started to look like this, but in the late '80s, when Tom Chambers was donning a Seattle Supersonics uniform, he started to look like David Bowie in full Goblin King gear.

After moving on from the Sonics, Chambers started to look less like the Goblin King and would just resemble David Bowie from time to time.

The two have very similarly built faces, and when the lighting is right, you'd have stopped and waited for Chambers to start belting "Diamond Dogs" while standing at the free-throw line.

Greg Oden

Greg Oden has the grizzled looks of a 50-year-old man who has worked in the coal mines since he was 18.

Unfortunately for Oden, he's only 24.

I'm not a doctor, but it seems to me that his entire body is aging way too fast—kind of a Jack situation going on. If it's not that, then I only have one other explanation.

Perhaps Oden is one of the first cases of altering his birth certificate in the NBA. Like a pitcher from Cuba or the DR coming over to play baseball alters his age to have a better shot at getting a deal, Oden was actually in his 40s when he graduated high school, making him north of 50 at this point.

Xavier McDaniel

Between those deep-set eyes that seem to droop for days, his skinny face and his compact, constantly furrowed brow, Xavier McDaniel is definitely a sight to see.

Looking a bit like a scolded doberman, The X-Man and his lumpy head created most of his good defense based on the fact that nobody on the floor wanted to get too close to him.

Gheorghe Muresan

Between the long, stretched-out limbs, the elongated face and the interestingly cropped facial hair, Gheorghe Muresan couldn't help but look like a giant character from a Mario game.

In fact, I would argue that if Muresan traded in that chin scruff for an evil-looking handlebar mustache that he's no more than a real-life incarnation of Waluigi.

Popeye Jones

Ladies and gentlemen, the unforgettable, unenviable and ultimately completely awe-inspiring Popeye Jones.

I'm not sure what it is, but Popeye Jones' face looks more like a work of art than anything else.

The bulging eyes, quivering lips and ears that look like they belong to Shrek are just too much to ignore.

This is what Nosferatu would look like as a Disney character. What a beauty of a man.

Sam Cassell

There's no reason I should put this lightly at this point—Sam Cassell looks like an alien life form jammed himself into a human being's skin.

Pictures are out there where he looks like E.T. and others that show him looking quite a bit like Gollum, and to be honest, neither of them are that far off.

When I was a younger fellow (so this was like two weeks ago), I had a nightmare where Sam Cassell was chasing me through a forest, and every time I turned around, a bit more of his skin had fallen off. Progressively, he lost his outer shell and ended up coming out looking like the alien from Alien.

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