NBA Superstitions: Lucky Socks, Family Guy, and Five Showers a Day

For Jason Terry, his superstition began in 1997. The night before the NCAA national championship game, Terry’s Arizona Wildcats faced the University of Kentucky. Sharing a hotel room with teammate Mike Bibby, both struggled to sleep before the biggest game of their lives.

“Mike Bibby and I were anxious for the game,” Terry says. “So, we both put our full uniforms on – socks, everything. And we slept in them. The next day, we ended up winning the national championship. After that, I was like, ‘OK, I think I’m superstitious and I need to keep this thing going.’”

Terry is an expert on basketball superstitions. He won at every level, including an NBA title with the Dallas Mavericks in 2011, and has embraced numerous quirks on and off the court.

In college, he wore long socks with “CATS” down the side. In the NBA, he wore a headband to honor his mentor Slick Watts. Most notably, before every NBA game, Terry slept in the shorts of the opposing team.

“For instance,” Terry says, “if we’re playing the Miami Heat, I’d wear the Heat shorts the night before each game.”

He obtained the shorts directly from the source.

“I would hustle equipment managers and see if they had an extra pair,” says Terry, the 2009 NBA Sixth Man of the Year. “I think the most famous shorts I was able to get was a pair of Utah Jazz shorts that belonged to John Stockton.”

He knew they belonged to Stockton by specific details.

“Number one: they were short,” Terry says. “Number two: they had his No 12 on the inside tag.”

Former NBA guard Eldridge Recasner, who played eight seasons including starts for the Rockets and Hawks, emphasized the importance of sleep and routine before games.

“My main thing was that I had to take a nap on gameday and do my same pregame warmup routine,” Recasner says. “The nap was mandatory. And the ball-handling and shooting drills I did had to be the same routine all the time.”

Beyond drills, Recasner honored his father before each contest.

“My dad was in the Army,” says Recasner, now a college basketball broadcaster. “He passed away when I was 18. So, I always looked at the flag during games. I counted off five stars to the right, five stars down, five stars to the left and five stars back up to the starting star and salute my dad. I still do it today as an announcer.”

Tim Hardaway, who faced Recasner in the 90s, had his own superstitions. At home, he drove the same route to games. On the road, the five-time All-Star says, “I ate the same thing every day – caesar salad with baked chicken and vegetables.”

NBA history is full of superstitions. Ray Allen shaved his head at the same time daily. Michael Jordan wore his college shorts under his uniform. Rajon Rondo showered five times on gamedays. LeBron James clipped his nails during games and threw chalk dust before tip-off.

Some superstitions are even more specific.

“Kevin Garnett had to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before every game,” Terry says. “And it had to be on a certain type of bread. And he watched Family Guy while he ate those sandwiches. His other superstition was that he always had to be the last guy on the team plane if we were traveling. Every time.”

In 2010, ahead of the Mavericks’ championship season, Terry got a tattoo of the Larry O’Brien Trophy on his right biceps at a team function.

“Once we won, it basically said I proved it,” Terry says.

But repeating the tattoo ritual did not bring success.

“Superstitions don’t always work out,” he says. “I tried it again. Once I signed with the Celtics as a free agent [in 2012], I went and got the Celtics logo tattooed on my other biceps with the Larry O’Brien Trophy. But we lost in the first round. I only played one year with the Celtics, so I don’t think I’ll do the tattoo superstition any more. It has to work multiple times to be a true superstition.”

The only time Terry could not practice a superstition came in college after his Arizona team won the title.

“There was only one time when I wasn’t able to do my superstition,” says Terry. “That was the equipment manager in 1998. In the first round of the NCAA Tournament, he forgot my signature CATS socks. We tried – we got regular white socks. My roommate put a sharpie pen to them and wrote “CATS” down each side. But it didn’t work.”

Terry went 0-9 in that game against Nicholls State.

“I didn’t score one bucket,” he says. “But the next day, they Fed-Ex’d my socks for the second round and I had double-digits. We won the game by 33.”