boutons
12-07-2005, 07:11 AM
The New York Times
December 7, 2005
Sports of The Times
N.B.A. Dress Code Confuses the Long and the Short of It
By SELENA ROBERTS
A TWISTED version of "Nanny 911" is unfolding in N.B.A. arenas, where league observers are paid to be virtual seamstresses as they eyeball the hemlines of players.
In Catholic schools, young ladies are scolded for wearing skirts that flirt upward to reveal too much thigh. In the David Stern Academy, grown men are rapped across the knuckles with a $10,000 fine when their shorts go south of a kneecap.
More skin, Commissioner Stern has demanded. Dare to bare, he is saying.
He isn't promoting sex appeal, but suburban appeal. By forcing N.B.A. players into resembling the Jerry West template for the league's ancient logo - short shorts, please - Stern has turned courts that used to be catwalks for shoe trends into places for perp walks for those players in violation of the "shorts code."
The rule calling for shorts to be one inch above the knee has been around for several years, but it has not been vigorously enforced until now. The league has fined twice as many players for uniform violations this year as it did during the 2004-5 season, as Stu Jackson, the N.B.A.'s official disciplinarian, said by telephone yesterday.
In recent weeks, union officials have tallied more than a dozen players who have been nabbed, including Philadelphia's Allen Iverson, Denver's Andre Miller, Indiana's Jermaine O'Neal and the Knicks' Stephon Marbury and Nate Robinson. (At 5 feet 9 inches, with the wind at his back, Robinson is apparently expected to wear shorts fitted for a shot glass.)
Players already have to arrive at arenas in the threads of a game-show host as part of the new off-the-floor dress code, but now they have to take their uniform cues from John Stockton.
"What's next, we can't wear our hair in cornrows?" O'Neal said. "You wonder where all this is going."
That is a good question. Why the hike in hemline sirens?
"The reason is this year we noticed more numbers of shorts that were long," Jackson said, adding that the league used in-arena observers, videotape and photographs as evidence to warn and fine players. "Our ability to scrutinize is more extensive than ever before."
The league is not simply hooked on the gizmos and gimmicky of "MacGyver" technology. In the context of the latest wardrobe rules, and with new age-eligibility measures to prevent high school seniors from becoming N.B.A. rookies, something else is driving the N.B.A.'s obsession with uniformity: a suburban outreach.
The league is determined to satisfy ticket-holders who are uncomfortable with a league they cannot relate to. Baggy jeans on the sideline, long shorts on the court, bejeweled teenagers on the floor, they're all code for hip-hop to red-state ears.
The league is asking players to be anything but individuals; in the process, Stern is spoiling the diversity he should be embracing.
"Do we have to change everything about ourselves?" said O'Neal, who tried to comply with the shorts bylaws by changing twice before being fined anyway. "The message to us is that we're too urban."
Demanding that the players act as Stepford Wives, nagging them into submission, does not improve the league.
What the league needs it cannot tailor. It is desperate for a superstar the public can love, for that rare player who is both likable and deadly at the buzzer.
Once, Kobe Bryant fit that ultimate mold as upstanding and bilingual, sophisticated and talented. But then the revelations of arrogance surfaced along with a rape accusation, all before a messy split with Shaquille O'Neal.
It's odd, but Bryant has always been known as a snappy dresser. So the length of a player's shorts does not define the measure of the man.
Stern knows this, but playing nanny is a way to assert his authority.
He is in control, just so you know. More than a year ago, his grip on his players was cast into doubt when Stern - and the rest of the world - witnessed replays of a Pistons-Pacers brawl that spilled into the stands.
Had his league spiraled out of control?
Stern has used the melee at the Palace as a cudgel over the players, getting what he wanted out of collective bargaining, putting in the dress code to soothe suburban ticket buyers, prosecuting hemlines to protect a bottom line.
O'Neal said: "Instead of sending out people to determine if a player's shorts are too long, the league should be trying to make the game better by improving officiating and the way the game is played. They say they want the best product on the floor, but it would help if guys felt comfortable."
It's troubling to see the league's effort to create a comfort level with fans leaving some players feeling as if they don't belong. Outcasts in long shorts. Misfits in baggy jeans.
"What's all this leading to," O'Neal said. "I just don't know."
It's leading backward. Stern created the N.B.A.'s star factory, but he doesn't seem to like the hip, young product now. He wants to go retro. He wants to go back to a time before players were outsized celebrities, back to a period even before Jordan, Bird and Magic.
In micromanaging his players' images, right down to their shorts, Stern is asking them to live up to the silhouetted image of a great player who retired in 1974.
Instead of using Jerry West as a template, Stern should update the logo - and his short-sighted thinking.
E-mail: [email protected]
December 7, 2005
Sports of The Times
N.B.A. Dress Code Confuses the Long and the Short of It
By SELENA ROBERTS
A TWISTED version of "Nanny 911" is unfolding in N.B.A. arenas, where league observers are paid to be virtual seamstresses as they eyeball the hemlines of players.
In Catholic schools, young ladies are scolded for wearing skirts that flirt upward to reveal too much thigh. In the David Stern Academy, grown men are rapped across the knuckles with a $10,000 fine when their shorts go south of a kneecap.
More skin, Commissioner Stern has demanded. Dare to bare, he is saying.
He isn't promoting sex appeal, but suburban appeal. By forcing N.B.A. players into resembling the Jerry West template for the league's ancient logo - short shorts, please - Stern has turned courts that used to be catwalks for shoe trends into places for perp walks for those players in violation of the "shorts code."
The rule calling for shorts to be one inch above the knee has been around for several years, but it has not been vigorously enforced until now. The league has fined twice as many players for uniform violations this year as it did during the 2004-5 season, as Stu Jackson, the N.B.A.'s official disciplinarian, said by telephone yesterday.
In recent weeks, union officials have tallied more than a dozen players who have been nabbed, including Philadelphia's Allen Iverson, Denver's Andre Miller, Indiana's Jermaine O'Neal and the Knicks' Stephon Marbury and Nate Robinson. (At 5 feet 9 inches, with the wind at his back, Robinson is apparently expected to wear shorts fitted for a shot glass.)
Players already have to arrive at arenas in the threads of a game-show host as part of the new off-the-floor dress code, but now they have to take their uniform cues from John Stockton.
"What's next, we can't wear our hair in cornrows?" O'Neal said. "You wonder where all this is going."
That is a good question. Why the hike in hemline sirens?
"The reason is this year we noticed more numbers of shorts that were long," Jackson said, adding that the league used in-arena observers, videotape and photographs as evidence to warn and fine players. "Our ability to scrutinize is more extensive than ever before."
The league is not simply hooked on the gizmos and gimmicky of "MacGyver" technology. In the context of the latest wardrobe rules, and with new age-eligibility measures to prevent high school seniors from becoming N.B.A. rookies, something else is driving the N.B.A.'s obsession with uniformity: a suburban outreach.
The league is determined to satisfy ticket-holders who are uncomfortable with a league they cannot relate to. Baggy jeans on the sideline, long shorts on the court, bejeweled teenagers on the floor, they're all code for hip-hop to red-state ears.
The league is asking players to be anything but individuals; in the process, Stern is spoiling the diversity he should be embracing.
"Do we have to change everything about ourselves?" said O'Neal, who tried to comply with the shorts bylaws by changing twice before being fined anyway. "The message to us is that we're too urban."
Demanding that the players act as Stepford Wives, nagging them into submission, does not improve the league.
What the league needs it cannot tailor. It is desperate for a superstar the public can love, for that rare player who is both likable and deadly at the buzzer.
Once, Kobe Bryant fit that ultimate mold as upstanding and bilingual, sophisticated and talented. But then the revelations of arrogance surfaced along with a rape accusation, all before a messy split with Shaquille O'Neal.
It's odd, but Bryant has always been known as a snappy dresser. So the length of a player's shorts does not define the measure of the man.
Stern knows this, but playing nanny is a way to assert his authority.
He is in control, just so you know. More than a year ago, his grip on his players was cast into doubt when Stern - and the rest of the world - witnessed replays of a Pistons-Pacers brawl that spilled into the stands.
Had his league spiraled out of control?
Stern has used the melee at the Palace as a cudgel over the players, getting what he wanted out of collective bargaining, putting in the dress code to soothe suburban ticket buyers, prosecuting hemlines to protect a bottom line.
O'Neal said: "Instead of sending out people to determine if a player's shorts are too long, the league should be trying to make the game better by improving officiating and the way the game is played. They say they want the best product on the floor, but it would help if guys felt comfortable."
It's troubling to see the league's effort to create a comfort level with fans leaving some players feeling as if they don't belong. Outcasts in long shorts. Misfits in baggy jeans.
"What's all this leading to," O'Neal said. "I just don't know."
It's leading backward. Stern created the N.B.A.'s star factory, but he doesn't seem to like the hip, young product now. He wants to go retro. He wants to go back to a time before players were outsized celebrities, back to a period even before Jordan, Bird and Magic.
In micromanaging his players' images, right down to their shorts, Stern is asking them to live up to the silhouetted image of a great player who retired in 1974.
Instead of using Jerry West as a template, Stern should update the logo - and his short-sighted thinking.
E-mail: [email protected]