THE NBA - MAYBE you've heard - is getting into the dress-code business. The league is limiting the length of players' shorts, which hasn't gone over real big with many of the players, as you might expect.
Establishing a dress code is always a sticky proposition. Especially when the people in charge tend to dress like Ward Cleaver, and their underlings are a bunch of ultra-hip, cutting-edge people whose fashion statements tend toward earrings and tattoos. On the one hand, you've got guys who listen to New Age and wear Dockers around the house; on the other hand, you've got guys who listen to Puff Daddy and wear pants so baggy they include a guest room.So naturally an alarm was sounded in the NBA's button-down offices when the players' shorts grew baggier and longer. They finally drew the line for long shorts, cutting them off at the knee, so to speak.
(Long shorts? Isn't that an oxymoron, like virtual reality and civil war?)
We used to have a name for shorts that reached below the knee: pants. Today we have a name for the shorts players used to wear: briefs.
In the old days, NBA players wore shorts that, in terms of length, checked in somewhere between Daisy Duke's and the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders'. When you see pictures of the old days - way, way back, 10 years ago - the first thing you notice are all those hairy thighs. What were we thinking, you wonder? Why did we like those? Why didn't somebody tell us? Looking at those shorts gives you the same feeling you get when you see pictures of your high school haircut.
Let's admit it, the longer shorts are an improvement. You no longer have to watch Billy Paultz or Dinner Bell Mel rumble down the court in the same thing Hulk Hogan wears to work.
But the NBA just said no when the shorts started getting bigger and bigger. Rod Thorn, the NBA's vice president of operations and Chief of Fashion Police, says the situation "has gotten out of control," which makes it sound like the long shorts have been running around holding up 7-11s in their off hours. This season the NBA ruled that shorts must be at least one inch above the top of the knee. Some players have resisted, and Thorn has had a full-time job just writing up the fines.
The NBA fined five Timberwolves and two Trail Blazers $2,500 apiece for wearing shorts deemed too long. The management of both clubs was fined $25,000, and warnings were given to the Wizards, 76ers, Clippers, Nuggets and Raptors (teams that are Generation-X intensive).
"I think it should be more up to the players' comfort," said Rasheed Wallace after he was fined $2,500. "So if we're comfortable with it, leave us alone."
This was the no-more-wedgies defense.
NBA inspectors have been making the rounds of NBA arenas to enforce the new rule. (Here's a job you might want to consider, children, when you grow up. Good hours, good travel, good working environment, minimal education required).
"Don't they have anything more important to worry about?" wonders Minnesota's Stephon Mar-bury, another one of those who was fined.
The NBA hasn't said it, but there is widespread belief the new edict grew from the league's fear of gang garb. The league's official word is that other pro leagues have dress codes, and so does the NBA.
Three years ago, the NFL fined Giants quarterback Phil Simms $1,500 for wearing his socks too high. The NFL is very specific about this. League rules state that "Players are permitted to wear as many layers of stockings and tape on the lower leg as they prefer, provided the exterior is a one-piece stocking that includes solid white from the top of the shoe to no higher than the mid-point of the lower leg, and approved team color or colors (non-white) from that point to the top of the stocking . . . ."
And you wondered why the rule book is so thick.
Baseball players have been given free rein, although it's a wonder that no one has banned pudgy managers from wearing uniforms three sizes too small. Unfortunately, pro golf doesn't have much of a dress code, either - to wit: Sunday's (Shirts and) Skins Game. Clearly, they need to address the issue of knickers (are they long shorts or pants?).
The trend in baggy shorts is thought to have been started by (who else?) Michael Jordan, who also is thought to have brought us shaved heads and the abolition of the traveling violation as well. He began wearing baggy shorts so he could wear his lucky North Carolina trunks underneath them.
Ever since then, hemlines have been falling and expanding, with few exceptions, most notably those worn by the Jazz's John Stockton and Jeff Hornacek, who have stubbornly continued to wear shorter shorts. It would have been entertaining, in a circus kind of way, to see how far the Gen Xers would have taken the long shorts.
Now we'll never know.