The Inside Hoop on the Fashion Industry
The NBA Tunnel Walk’s Important Role in Menswear
With over 10 million viewers, the NBA is one of America’s most popular mediums for sports entertainment, inevitably having far-reaching effects beyond the half-court shots, buzzer beaters, and trades. You might have seen paparazzi shots of some of the world’s most famous basketball players enter arenas with some of the most colorful, avant-garde, or even outlandish outfits. This act is intentional— a player’s “tunnel walk” before their game used to be as mundane as shuffling into the building in sweatpants, but now has created the simple act of entering somewhere like Crypto.com arena as one of the most powerful and influential runways in the world.
The first propulsion of the NBA into the fashion world actually started with controversy. The then-commissioner of the NBA, David Stern, targeted Philadelphia 76er Allen Iverson for his memorable appearance and embrace of hip-hop culture. Iverson participated and influenced trends from two decades past, like “baggy clothes, durags and chains-over-shirts” (Robb Report). Stern “didn't like the tattoos, hip-hop culture that (Allen Iverson) brought to the league. But they made millions of dollars off of him because he was the best player in the league in the early 00's” (Bleacher Report) In an act of racism specifically targeted against Iverson, Stern banned such clothing from NBA games and required business-casual to be worn at all league-affiliated events in 2005 so that the sport would seem more “marketable”. At first, this regulation resulted in ill-fitting suits and a disconnect between players and the new regulated style.
Even before then, fashion and the NBA were constantly evolving and have gone hand-in-hand. Take, for example, Dennis Rodman’s career after 1986. Being one of the first athletes to publicly bend perceptions of gender, binaries, and self-expression, Rodman’s outfits and outrageous public acts were unconventional and controversial, but had significant impact on the fashion industry.
His choice to attend his book signing for “Bad As I Wanna Be” in full drag— his six-foot-seven stature in full wedding gown, entourage of tuxedoed women, and showstopping makeup— set the media ablaze with his gender-bending antics. In fact, “his journey from rebounding savant to transgressive fashion icon forced fans to reckon with their own ideas about gender and sexuality long before Caitlyn Jenner and "RuPaul's Drag Race." (CNN) Many designers became more inspired to begin experimenting with acts as jarring and eye-catching as Rodman’s wedding where he “married himself”.
The rules against anything but business-casual in the tunnel have evidently been relaxed since Stern’s transition out of the program, but still propelled a reclamation and re-envisioning what it means to be “marketable;” instead of conforming to status-quo, the players experiment with new silhouettes, up-and-coming brands, and what can be the most eye-catching for excited viewers tuning in before a game. Take, for example, when LeBron James strutted out before his highly-anticipated game in a full Thom Browne suit. Well, almost full. James wore a “short suit”, taking the classic men’s suit and completely overhauling traditional notions of formality. The collective public had many opinions about such a simple change, but for LeBron, this expression of fashion was jarring but actually practical. Shorts as workwear for basketball players on the court make exponentially more practical sense than long, stiff pants. This reclamation of a loophole in David Stern’s original problematic regulations made fashion headlines around the world. James and the entire Cavaliers arriving in entirely Thom Browne also changed business involvement in fashion and sports entertainment: “No longer was it just about players one-upping one another but brands meticulously strategizing for these opportunities.” (GQ)
As social media and personal branding becomes ever-important, the wholehearted embrace of the tunnel walk as its own entity has become extremely influential. Stylist Courtney Mays, who works for Phoenix Suns’ Chris Paul, notes how, “we put athletes in this box, in this very masculine world, but why can’t they love fashion? The way you dress affects the way you feel.” (Town and Country Mag). For example, then-Clippers player Serge Ibaka sported a runway-ready look with an ankle-length linen kaftan standing in stark contrast to any other players’ outfits at the moment. Pairing the robe with a cross-body Thom Browne bag, Dior bucket hat, silk scarf, and subtle Dior sneakers, the outfit combines several unlikely pairings, but catapults Ibaka into the limelight as understated yet bold and confident. His outfit reconsiders Western dress standards, presenting in elegance and sophistication. The game was won, even just from the sidelines.
It’s hard not to have heard of the “big red boots” frenzying around the fashion world this week. Debuting on February 16th, the boots are purported to cost $350. They’ve sprung up across varying celebrities throughout social media and paparazzi shots, seemingly making a sudden and blunt entrance into the fashion sphere.
Most notably, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander arrived at his Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Los Angeles Lakers game wearing the cartoonish, 3.5 pound boots in the tunnel leading into Crypto.com arena. The hard-launch of these boots into the otherwise masculine arena of men’s basketball pushes the same boundaries of outrageousness, artistic expression, and masculinity in true Rodman-esque fashion.
Gilgeous-Alexander and many others with such bold choices allow the audience to reconsider notions of acceptability and trends… if Shai wears such a bold style so nonchalantly into the arena, what’s to say it’s anything different than sporting a pair of Converse?
This indeed pushes fashion boundaries even further into abstractedness. This constant motivation and push further into the “controversial” could be explained by what Robb Report described as “today’s status-conscious exemplars of male glamour… (being) combative by nature. It’s like seeing your friend have a great bottle of wine and wanting it, too… these guys are highly competitive and pushing each other to be more expressive and original” (Robb Report). Seeing these boots as strange or odd now may be a glimmer in the past as styles like MSCHF’s big red boots become normalized, starting with the major global stages like the NBA tunnel walks.
All in all, the NBA tunnel walk has had significant impact on the men’s and general fashion sphere in which it draws attention to new trends, embraces and reclaims the old, and inspires a new generation of aspiring athletes, avid fans, and the general public. The long history of rejection of traditional masculinity has been present in the NBA for many years, even in a stereotypically very machismo space.