Perth Wildcats players are desperate to win this season's NBL title, but why do their partners want them to wrap up the grand final series in straight sets?
One look at the Wildcats squad will give you the answer - grizzly beards, and lots of them.
Almost a decade ago, the Wildcats started a tradition of growing beards as soon as the regular season finished.
As part of the pact, players and coaches weren't allowed to shave their beards until the team got knocked out of the finals or won the title.
The beards are even bigger this year given there was a week off between the end of the regular season and the start of the finals.
Wildcats coach Trevor Gleeson is sporting one of the bushiest beards of the lot, and his wife Dawn isn't a fan.
"It's got a big thumb's down," Gleeson said.
"Her message is win in three so you can get it off."
The consensus is the same among partners of Wildcats players.
Captain Damian Martin said the tradition is all in good fun.
"I don't even know who to blame for this atrociousness that's on my face," Martin said with a laugh when recalling the history of how the tradition started.
"It started 10 years ago. As soon as we qualified for the finals, someone piped up, it was probably Greg Hire who can't grow much facial hair, and said, 'Alright, finals beards it is. No more shaving'.
"I didn't tell Nick Kay and Mitch Norton because they have a beard year round and we thought we'd give them a nice starting base and see how grizzly they can look by the end.
"If it goes all the way to game five, they'll probably have birds laying nests in there."
The best-of-five grand final series begins on Friday night when the Wildcats host Melbourne United at RAC Arena.
Game two will be played in Melbourne on Sunday.
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