GREENBURGH, N.Y. — Iman Shumpert needed a project this past summer to help divert his focus from the painful and long road of recovery from knee surgery.

One way he thought to help make the long months ahead more enjoyable was to change his hairstyle. Last season in his rookie campaign with the Knicks, Shumpert wore a low buzz cut. He quickly decided he did not want to return to having a long ponytail or braids, as he did when he was a teenager. So Shumpert’s older brother, Ahrii, who has been his barber since Iman was in eighth grade, asked what he thought about trying a haircut popular in the late 1980s and early ’90s.

Shumpert eventually landed on the high-top fade. From the moment he was carried off the court with a torn left anterior cruciate ligament and lateral meniscus during the first round of the playoffs last April to his season debut Thursday in London, Shumpert has grown the hair on the top of his head but has kept the hair on the sides and lower back of his head trimmed.