Mike Miller: Hair Through the Years

I have followed the Mike Miller's career since he was tearin' up for Florida with Teddy Dupay and Donnell Harvey back in 2000 for one of my all-time favorite non-Illini teams. By and large, it has been a disappointingly average career for Miller who was drafted #5 by Orlando after his sophomore year at Florida. His lack of success and fade out of the basketball spotlight has been highlighted by many poor hair choices.


In a style reflecting Miller's humble upbringing in Mitchell, South Dakota (quick - name another athlete from a Dakota), he goes with the clean-cut look while at Florida. A solid look and a good start to his career.

Miller does pretty well with the Magic his rookie year and averages 11.9 points per game and wins the Rookie of the Year award (in a weak rookie year, kinda like how Todd Hollandsworth somehow won the mlb ROY award in the early 90's). He goes with what he knows in the hair department and keeps it clean.



Unfortunately, this is as good as it gets for Mikey as he gets traded to basketball hell in Memphis.
Uh Mike, Sasha Vujacic called and he wants his girl's soccer headband back.
Really, this is where the wheels come off for Miller. I blame the Grizzlies, they need to be regulated to the NBDL. I'm not sure what Mike was thinking, or how much coke he had done when he decided this was a good look.
Miller develops into a solid bench player in Memphis winning the 6th man of the year award in 2005-06 and averaging 18.5 ppg. in 2006-07

White Mike's NBA journey continues on in Minnesota when he is traded there prior to the 2008-09 season. At this point he is in full-on Hanson look-a-like mode - plus a couple of weird looking tattoos that are now an official part of the league dress code.
Miller was one of the final cuts on the 2008 gold medal winning USA Olympic team. Narrowly missing out on the opportunity to join Vin Baker, Steve Smith, Stephon Marbury, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, and Christian Laettner on the "Worst Players to ever play for the USA Team" team.

The NBA, where men wearing ponytails fighting over loose balls happens.
Miller, now with the Wizards, takes it to yet another level by dyeing his hair blonde and pulling it back in a ponytail. I am assuming that Mike was inspired by Val Kilmer's character in Heat "It's like risk versus reward baby."

I think that the point of this post is that I miss Florida Mike Miller. Rock the clean cut look Mike, call Teddy Dupay back, and put the ball on the floor a little more.