A 119-98 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday didn’t prompt the San Antonio Spurs to panic. Instead, Spurs center Victor Wembanyama and forward Keldon Johnson went another route: They shaved their heads.
Wembanyama and Johnson showed up to shootaround on Thursday bald. It’s not the first time Wembanyama has buzzed his hair. He notably got a similar haircut while visiting a Shaolin temple in Zhengzhou, China, during the 2025 offseason.
However, this time it was Johnson’s idea to bring out the clippers. He explained on Thursday that a week ago, he shaved all of his friends’ heads. It prompted Johnson to text in the Spurs’ group chat that he was going to follow suit.
“And nobody believed me,” he said.
Wembanyama told Johnson after the Thunder game that he’d go bald, offering Johnson another reason to do so. After landing in San Antonio the next day, they got clippers from a coach and proceeded to buzz their hair in a van. The team told Johnson to go first, but he feared that no one else would go through with it.
“I was like ‘I don’t know if I want to go first’ because then somebody will be like nah after I already bald my head,” Johnson said. “So then Vic went and shaved his head a little bit and then he cut my hair, cut all mines off. And then I finished his head off, like cutting his head.”
The seventh-year pro added that buzzing his hair is new to him. His head was cold before it started sweating as he began running. But he emphasized it has been fun and games and he’s “trying to get everybody I can to go bald.”
If Johnson and Wembanyama put up big numbers against the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday night, others may have good reason to do so too.
