While the former should be the focus of this sketch, I can’t help but consider my memory of Cage’s dark skin glistening with sweat, strong stretching hands corralling yet another rebound, exhaling, sweat flying and that jheri curl resting intact, maybe bouncing ever so slightly as Cage throws an outlet pass and runs the floor. Cage’s best years were with the Clippers and Sonics and he wore the jheri until at least his Sonics days. It was sometime in the 90s that he retired that dying do, exchanging it for a more contemporary, more assimilated low fade. Cage adopted the fade sometime after the jheri was infamously mocked (and likely ruined for many) by Eriq LaSalle’s character in Coming to America.
But Cage was clearly more than a hairstyle. He was a rebounding champion (13rpg in 1988), a 6’9” power forward/center with a classically v-shaped frame prone to casual lefty dunks and an unflashy, functional style of play. The highlight video below is mostly uninspiring by today’s standards—with the exception of the last five seconds. From a purely statistical output perspective, Cage brings to mind Troy Murphy. The comparisons end there though as Murphy was an auburn-haired, pasty-colored distance shooting big while Cage was nicknamed “John Shaft.”
Dancing With Noah 