Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Heat up: How Robinson turned into a sex symbol
Social media took a neck scratch and ran with it
NEW ORLEANS — Duncan Robinson never saw it coming.
No, not his record-setting 3-point shooting. The second-year Miami Heat forward always had steadfast belief in that regard.
But rather how he has become the NBA’s hottest sex symbol.
Yes, Duncan Robinson.
It all started innocuously, while playing last week against the Milwaukee Bucks at American-Airlines Arena, when veteran guard Wesley Matthews got a bit too, shall we say, handsy. The result was a large red scratch on the left side of Robinson’s neck.
A battle scar to most.
A, well, hickey, to those taking note of such blemishes on social media.
“Oh dear,” Robinson said with an embarrassed laugh Friday morning of what the
simplest of scratches has become.
“If you need me to, I can provide video evidence of play where I got scratched,” he said following the Heat’s morning shootaround in advance of Friday night’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans at Smoothie King Center. “People are making a big deal out of that. It’s funny, because the picture that was posted, it does look like a hickey. But if you actually look at it, it doesn’t look like a hickey at all. It looks like a scratch. The internet can be deceiving. Don’t believe everything your read. Or you see.”
The innocuous posting wound up turning into something more serious.
Because there is something more serious.
“I am in a relationship,” he said. “So that was part of the issue. She lives in a different state. So that was part of the issue, in that it created a certain level of buzz. And I haven’t seen her in a while. So it’s … challenging.”
The relationship, he said, is strong enough to move past a mere … scratch.
“It’s all good,” he said. “I had told her I got scratched, so it’s all good now.”
So from a modest New England upbringing to time at Williams College before transferring to Michigan, did he ever think it would all take a turn toward sex symbol?
“I think you’re overselling it a little bit,” he said, a blush joining his smile. “I think that’s a stretch.”
Now 25, Robinson had to pause to consider the last time he had an actual hickey.
“Ahh, I don’t know, maybe high school,” he said. “I mean, that’s part of the craze of it all. That’s something that’s high school or whatever, maybe in college. But I’m too old to be doing that sort of stuff.”
And no, no unsolicited photos in his DMs or texts.
“Nah, nah, oh dear,” he said. “It’s been all low key. I stay low key.”
And if asked to pose for a magazine?
“Nah, nah, no,” he said. “That’s not happening.”