A river of ink runs through L.A.'s NBA teams It's fun having two great basketball teams in town, right? More circus dunks (go Griffin!). More double-doubles (go Gasol!). And we can only hope, more retro-cool name changes (go Metta World Peace!). But as a fickle armchair fan who learned what little I know about the game from my kids' coaches, I face a dilemma: Who to throw in with, Clippers or Lakers? For the past two decades, the decision was easy: Iif you liked fat chances and underdogs, you followed the Clippers. If your taste was for dominance, dynasties or thumbing your nose at L.A. haters, the Lakers were your team. But now, you can't throw a sock at the TV during a home game without hitting an all-star, a legend or a youthful phenom. So who will get the jump on the other? While idly pondering this subject during the last matchup (go Lakers!), I found myself wondering about player tattoos. The Clippers' young stars, Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, have no visible ink. Is the NBA tattoo craze tailing off? And does that make the Clippers the team of the future? Absolutely not, says Laker Matt Barnes, who talked to me after practice in the team's gleaming high-security gym last week. In the hallway, rap artists Cypress Hill; their dubstep producer, Rusko; and a black-clad entourage waited to shoot a video with World Peace (who changed his name from Ron Artest last fall). Admission to the facility was controlled by a fingerprint recognition system. Barnes is a veritable Illustrated Man, with torso, back and full-sleeve tattoos. "I kind of just think that's what our generation is about," Barnes said. On TV, most NBA tattoos resemble Rorschach blotches, so I had assumed they were like war paint, designed to intimidate, like the "Chosen 1" on LeBron James' back. But Barnes explained that players are more likely to use their bodies to celebrate family members or memorialize those who've passed on than to provoke opponents. "People get stuff that they can appreciate or find meaningful," he said. The last thing you think is that your tattoo might intimidate somebody. Barnes has his twin sons' footprints on his neck and a heavenly mural of his mother, who died in 2007, on his torso. A pair of eyes on his back glares at viewers over "La Famiglia,"a tribute to the Italian half of his heritage. He plans to add the rest of his family tree to what empty space remains below. Barnes said the eyes are a reminder to "watch my back." "Especially in L.A., there's a lot of shady people out here, people you think are friends or people that want to get to know you because of what you do, not who you are," he said. There are plenty of tattoo cliches in the NBA: panthers, skulls, hands clasped in prayer. Milwaukee Bucks' forward Stephen Jackson's variation, praying hands clutching a gun, made the list of Worst NBA Tattoos. Mister Cartoon, a celebrity tattoo artist in downtown Los Angeles, said some players go gonzo with flames and aggressive artwork, or cars, money and dice - "the fantasy life." But he agreed many use their bodies to express family values. More than half the league's players, by some estimates, are inked. Barnes, who has lost count of his own, says tattoos are addictive, so it's unlikely they will go away soon. On the ridiculous premise that their tattoos reflect their game, I decided to rank Clipper and Laker ink, position by position, to see who came out on top. Not all the players could be reached, and some of the descriptions are based on Internet photos and videos and "In the Paint: Tattoos of the NBA and the Stories Behind Them" (The Los Angeles Public Library has 10 copies of this invaluable volume): Center: Clipper DeAndre Jordan vs. Laker Andrew Bynum. Jordan has a half-skull/ half-earth tattoo labeled 'Don't gain the world and lose your soul,' which he told an interviewer was a Bob Marley quote warning not to lose yourself in materialistic pursuits. He also wears a portrait of his bespectacled grandmother.