On one of our preseason prediction podcasts, we asked the question of whether or not Roy Hibbert is the NBA’s funniest player. As it turns out, the question we should have been asking is this: Is Roy Hibbert the NBA player who is the biggest fan of “Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers?” The answer, my friends, is definitively “YES!!!”
From Hardwood Paroxysm’s transcription of Hibbert’s call to his friend Chelsea Peretti’s podcast:
C: You are generally a very emotional person. [Roy laughs] Right? I don’t know. Listen, did you have a hero that you wanted to talk about, Roy?
R: I mean, I’m not going with the cliche Martin Luther King, Jr. I am not going with the cliche, you know. Obviously my parents did a lot for me but I’m not going to lie, I feel like as a kid growing up I wanted to be like the Green Ranger. I think he was like a hero in my life. Like the Power Ranger. I wanted to be like him doing all of the martial arts. I even joined karate so I could learn to become you know a martial arts expert.
C: That’s crazy!
R: I got kicked out because I didn’t know my left from my right when I was a little kid so I didn’t go back.
C: I never watched the Power Rangers, Roy so I don’t know–
R: Are you serious? That was like–I had all of the Zords and all the stuff. I used to rush home after school just to see the cartoons and stuff like that. Who didn’t?
[...]
C: What was the draw with The Power Rangers? What was so cool about the Green Ranger?
R: I mean, he was different. He was like the badass of the group. He had a pony tail.
C: You should do it!
R: He just stood out a little bit more. I mean obviously, I saw all of the Power Rangers movies when I was a kid. I was a geek, too; I am not going to lie. He was doing the back flips and all other stuff. I tried that and was just too tall and went home sad.
C: Roy, I really think that you could rock a pony tail. I think it would make a lot of waves in the NBA. If you really worked on growing your hair out, and then you got a perm and you wore it in a low ponytail. I think people would be talking.
R: I would be a trendsetter.
C: Yeah, people would talk.
This is both surprising and pretty much exactly what you would expect. Plus, it helps explain why Roy Hibbert got so in to MMA this summer. He was just trying to be the Green Ranger, duh. (Also might explain why the Pacers brought in Gerald Green, but that’s just speculation.)
And I have to say I agree with Chelsea Peretti regarding Roy Hibbert growing a ponytail, and not just because I also want a ponytail. Ever since Alexey Shved was forced to cut his, we’ve been one down on our NBA ponytail quota for the season. It’s pretty much just Joakim Noah and Lou Amundson, with Jae Crowder and Kenneth Faried thrown in if you want to count them. Having an All-Star like Roy Hibbert with a permed pony tail would be a great victory for the p-tail lobby, which has seen its power diminish since its heyday in the early 90s. A very cool idea that definitely needs to happen.
I mean, can you imagine a 7-foot-2 giant with a permed ponytail? Don’t you want to see that? So do I and so does everyone, probably including the Green Ranger. If we can get Tommy to buy in, this idea is Jamaican Gold.
