This NBA dress code is making me angry.
You mean this is all the NBA is asking of 400 of the luckiest men on the face of the earth? To help support their organization and show some pride and responsibility?
What’s the NBA thinking?
If it is serious about regaining the image and aura it commanded in the late 1980s and ’90s, this is not nearly enough. Now about those ridiculously long basketball pants …
I want to stand up and shout, “We’re fed up and we’re not going to take it anymore.”
That being about the critics and self-appointed constitutional scholars who are fighting the brave and not so lonely battle for the personal rights of the overprivileged in the NBA.
They’re missing the point. It’s the economics, stupid.
This is not about cornrows, bling–I’m not fully sure what that is, but I know it’s involved–and shorts that reach the ankles. This is about money.
Commissioner David Stern is the king of the NBA because of the way he has maximized franchise fees, TV deals and sponsorships.
You think he was going to let someone like Mark Cuban into the NBA if Cuban weren’t offering double what anyone else would for the Dallas Mavericks?
No one in sport ever has been better at marketing than the NBA.
Stern always has been ahead of the curve in promoting his product, which is his players. So the NBA found hip-hop, the new market to enhance your product.
This isn’t about some reaction to hip-hop, though it cannot be helping that many of today’s players are idolizing murdered rap singers. Better, like the rest of America, to idolize NFL players.
The problem is the NBA is losing its old customers because they do not like the NBA’s product, its players.
Less often is mentioned the ballet-like grace of the players and great teams and competition. It’s Kobe Bryant’s sexual-assault case, Ron Artest and the Indiana Pacers’ brawl with the fans in Auburn Hills, Latrell Sprewell mocking a cut in his $14 million annual salary and saying he needs the money to feed his family, so-called stars like Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady admitting they didn’t play hard or quit on their teams to force trades.
And then Stern showed up at the Olympics and was horrified that the ugliest of the Americans were his players, showing up at state dinners with premiers and kings in do-rags, wearing baggy jeans, hats sideways.
The lesson of the Olympics wasn’t the loss and the immaturity of the young players, which is part of the problem. The lesson was what the NBA had come to represent and produce: declining ratings, stagnant or falling attendance in many places, reduced sponsorships.
The NBA is in trouble. That’s the story of the 2005-06 season.
A dress code is the next response. Banning high schoolers after this season is another, though that also came with misguided arguments about freedom of speech.
It’s easy to bash NBA players, and predictably many embarrassed themselves and the league with their moronic objections about race and others like Marcus Camby’s plea for a clothing stipend with his $9.3 million annual salary.
The corrupt AAU basketball process and sneaker companies spoil so many of these kids at such a young age that there’s a sense of entitlement, that the constitutional right is to make tens of millions of dollars in the NBA and don’t anyone tell me what to do. They’re just kids. We can excuse them.
But, as kids, they need direction.
It’s easy to denigrate NBA players for their lack of touch with America, from the debate over how Sprewell could keep his job after attacking coach P.J. Carlesimo to today’s discussion, with every office, even on casual Fridays, having rules of decorum.
But these are special people. They are the best at what they do in the world, remarkable and gifted.
Which is why they should be embracing this small step more than anyone.
Their futures and the future of their sport are in jeopardy.
Ask casual fans about the NBA and listen to their response.
Who doesn’t rave about the NCAA tournament, though the Charlotte Bobcats would blow out the champion every game? But major companies–who, sorry, are the money behind pro sports–are becoming loath to market themselves in tandem with NBA players. There are few true stars of the game anymore.
The so-called Q marketing ratings of likability among professional athletes and entertainers have NBA players among the most disliked. Retired NBA players like Michael Jordan and Julius Erving draw higher numbers than current stars.
NBA fans have been screaming for years for more accountability and professionalism, and now when the NBA tries to do something, the league is biased and unfair?
There’s no double standard, even for children of the ’60s like Phil Jackson, who condemned the players’ critical response. He endorsed Cadillacs.
Jerry Rubin and Tom Hayden of the famed Chicago Seven became successful businessmen and politicians.
Maybe it’s too much to expect these kids in the NBA to behave like grownups when they are not.
If Stern thought the players’ current looks and actions would double attendance, he’d wear a solid gold pacifier on a chain and a fedora facing sideways.
But all this is hurting the NBA. So Stern is asking the kids to grow up a little before they are ready, to show some respect for their product so they all will have happier and richer lives.
They should be thanking him.
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sasmith@tribune.com
