Steven Adams without a mustache will take some getting used to

We’ll always have the memories.

Everything is coming up Thunder! Even after losing Kevin Durant to the Warriors last offseason, the team had the spotlight thanks to Russell Westbrook’s triple-double-laden MVP season. And then the team manages to pull off the deal of the 2017 offseason by acquiring Paul George from the Indiana Pacers. But not everything is wavy with the roster. They lost an important staple of the franchise that has been with them for more than three years.

I’m talking about Steven Adams’ mustache.

Enes Kanter tweeted a recent photo of Adams, or at least I think it’s him. It’s honestly been so long since we’ve seen Adams without a mustache that I thought this was a random photo of Roger Federer or Tommy Wiseau taking a selfie during a hunting trip. But no, it’s actually Steven Adams.

Without the mustache, the brotherhood between Adams and Enes Kanter wouldn’t have been the same. They named themselves the Stache Bros for a reason. What would they have named themselves if both weren’t sporting a furry upper lip? Thunder and Lightning? That’s nowhere near as cool as Stache Bros. Their MVP campaign video for Westbrook wouldn’t have had the suave sophistication that we have come to love.

Russell Westbrook loved that mustache so much that he even dressed as Steven Adams for Halloween to wear a mustache to give it the proper recognition. And this was just early on in the mustache’s journey. It has brought us so much joy for years.

And I haven’t even mentioned Lil’ Stache Bro, the tiny Thunder fan who styled their hair and wore fake tattoo sleeves for a playoff game in 2016. Without Adams looking at a mirror one morning in the summer of 2014 and thinking “I don’t think I’m shaving today,” we’d have none of this.

But it’s not like Steven Adams didn’t warn us before. Back in 2014, he said the mustache was only for the media day photo. Back then it resembled Burt Reynolds’ but then it transformed into what a strongman in the early 1900s would wear. During that metamorphosis, we all thought it would last forever. Unfortunately, all good ’staches must come to an end eventually.

Still, there’s the likelihood that Adams will rock the mustache this upcoming season. He still has time to grow it, and the Thunder need everyone on the roster — the mustache included — to be at their best to have a good run at the postseason.