The Jester’s Quart: David Stern’s Crazy ‘Bout a Sharp-Dressed Man

The new NBA dress code policy has been labeled by some as a racist attack on the league’s young hip-hop influenced players. Columnist Greg Wyshynski debunks that theory, and then offers some advice on how these athletes should handle the new anti-bling restrictions.

Greg Wyshynski
Columnist, SportsFanMagazine.com

Racism is fun.

Well, not being a racist. Oh, I’m sure that was a blast back in the day, when everyone was like-minded and Caucasians weren’t teetering on the brink of minority status in America. But today, all being a racist gets you is uncomfortable silence at office happy hours, and elected in the South.

No, I’m talking about the suspicion of racism, and all the moral posturing and self-righteous finger-pointing that goes along with it. It’s a great conversation-starter: just identify the racial hypocrisy in anything from public policy to law enforcement to the casting of network sitcoms, and you’ve got an instant debate going. It’s like bringing up the designated hitter rule at a sports bar, only no one ever burned down half a city over Chili Davis.

That suspicion is also quite profitable, unless you’re one of those people who thinks Al Sharpton’s buying off the rack at Marshall’s.

But racism has become one of the most misdiagnosed symptoms in our society. If you look hard enough, and you want to see it, you can find it anywhere. Like in those Associated Press photo captions during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. You know: the one that had to the two white people “finding” food, and the nearly identical one that had the two black people “looting” their supplies?

Katrina was like a racial conspiracy beacon, attracting an endless barrage of accusations about injustice and insensitivity. The TV networks didn’t care about the victims because they were black. FEMA didn’t care about the victims because they were black. And George Bush doesn’t care about the victims, because he doesn’t care about black people, right Kanye?

Wrong, Kanye: George Bush doesn’t care about poor people.

Racism is too often confused with classism, especially in dealing with issues that affect urban and inner-city areas. But then racism is confused with a lot of things.

Like, for example, in the scrutiny over the NBA’s new “dress code” policy, where racism has been confounded with ageism.

The policy calls for players to wear “business casual” attire when they participate in team or league activities. That means no more T-shirts, hats, baggy shorts and giant bling-bling jewelry for players who basically sleep in that stuff.

Both Stephen Jackson of the Pacers and Jason Richardson of the Warriors came out against the policy, claiming it unfairly targeted young black players.

“They want to sway away from the hip-hop generation,” protested Richardson.

Generation’s the key word here; hip-hop’s just an adjective. David Stern and the Association have seen their product steadily decline in ratings, market share and prestige since the end of Michael Jordan’s glory years. They handed the keys to the most popular kingdom outside of the NFL to the generation of players that followed — and it never figured out how to operate the locks.

So after years of watching these players treat the NBA like a job rather than a passion, and watching their material interests trump those of his league, Stern decided to declare war on Generation Next. He raised the draft age to keep the high school kids out, and put controls into the new CBA to curb salary escalation for young free agents. He increased the penalties and testing for recreational drugs. He reached out to the international basketball community, bringing in wave after wave of foreign players that often outwork their American counterparts. (Perhaps at the next players’ association meeting, some unemployed auto plant workers could speak about the dangers of that.) Now, he’s instituted a dress code, much like they do in public schools that feel uniformity will strip away distractions. Next on the hit list for Stern: shipping players like Jackson and Richardson to NBA franchises on other continents.

But before the league can go global, it has to get its own house in order. And the dress code policy should help do just that…

…in theory. The one miscalculation Stern and the NBA made in this dress code is thinking that hip-hop culture and the individual expression of young players doesn’t go beyond wearing a headband and a throwback jersey to a press conference.

Have these people ever watched the draft?

 

If I’m an NBA player, I’m pimping myself out with the most outlandish threads I can find. I’m using materials NASA just invented for shuttle re-entry. I’m rocking a color scheme that makes Wonka’s edible candy room look like the palette of a Chaplin film by comparison.

Turn it around on them. Fight the power. Start cutting endorsement deals with big-label fashion designers, and put out your own line of signature business casual wear.

Suddenly, NBA press conferences are starting to sound like the red carpet at the Oscars:

“Great game, congratulations…who are you wearing tonight?”

“This is a LeBron 360 double-breasted, with a Walton tie. The purple bowler hat’s mine, though.”

Make some coin off this dress code. Because, dear players, the NBA is trying to take money out of your pockets.

The dress code effectively removes any and all unauthorized logos, slogans and labels from the public eye before, during and after NBA games. No “baseball caps” in postgame press conferences? No T-shirts? To me, that has more to do with eliminating free advertising for sporting apparel companies that don’t have contracts with the NBA than it does with fixing any alleged problems with the Association’s image.

I guess just like raising the minimum draft age will help bolster the NBA’s free labor minor league called the NCAA, this is just another happy accident.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this. Maybe the NBA is simply trying to shape up a wayward generation of players by forcing them to look the part of a professional. Maybe there are too many players who, in the words of Lakers coach Phil Jackson, have been wearing “prison garb” for the last several seasons.

And maybe if I read into it further, and know what I’m looking for, I can discover the racial undercurrents that have enraged so many critics of the policy.

Yet I think, in this case, they’re coincidental. We’re talking about a policy enacted to influence a culture and the generation that’s adopted it — not a skin color.

Stern isn’t on a crusade against black players; he’s on a crusade against young players. He’s the stogy codger in the 1960’s telling the hippies to cut their hair. He’s the angry dad banging on the ceiling to get his kid to turn that garbage down on his stereo.

He’s a man who’s convinced he knows what his business should look like, but only recently realized what it had become.

It may be too late for this rebound.

-SFM-

 

Published on the web and www.SportsFanMagazine.com since 1997, "The Jester's Quart" is a weekly satirical look at sports, pop culture and why NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is a jackass. Columnist Greg Wyshynski is the Senior Editor for SportsFan Magazine in Washington DC, and the Senior Sports Editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. His book “Glow Pucks & 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History” will be published in Spring 2006. Email Wyshynski at jestersquart@hotmail. com.

 

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