Monday, March 2, 2009
Fashion trends in the NBA are difficult to understand.
The League has gone from barely-there shorts (Think: Everyone pre-1990 and John Stockton) to full-length leggings (Think: Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade in 2005-06) and then briefly back again (Think: The Lakers’ worst throwback night ever*).
*Los Angeles’ short shorts in 2007 were such a disaster that Kobe and Co. changed at halftime, but still lost 110-91 to the Celtics.
Commissioner David Stern, then just a Sergeant in the Fashion Police, ended one epidemic in 2006 when he said the League would amend its dress code to ban the leggings that had somehow, beyond all reason, become popular with basketball’s elite.
On Friday, Lieutenant Stern — the leggings earned him a promotion — ruled that Wade’s most-recent fashion mistake was also against the dress code.
After taking an elbow to the face on Feb. 8, Wade required stitches on his left cheek. So, the Chicago native strapped a Band-Aid over the injury.
Wade then decided to wear stylish types of Band-Aids — including ones with his name, WADE, and nickname, FLASH — thus turning an adhesive into a fashion trend. At Tuesday night’s game, the Heat mascot, Lil’ Wayne and half the crowd were sporting Wade-Aids (or Band-Wade, whichever you prefer).
The League has a policy against wearing logos of self-promotion, which means Wade can still wear a Band-Aid for medical purposes. It just can’t be creative.
The point here is not to debate whether the Band-Aid look is cool or if it’s fair for the NBA to limit self-promotion (Answers: No and Yes).
The real point is that everyone agrees Wade only re-energized the fad, but no one has named the true originator. The look dates back to 2000, but it didn’t come from St. Louis’ Nelly.
For one week of AAU basketball practice in the winter of 2000, I wore a Band-Aid under my left eye. I didn’t invent the look, but I did steal it from the original, whose name is Erick Barkley.
Barkley played at St. John’s University from 1998-2000, and he was the first person I ever saw sport a Band-Aid on his cheek. Barkley wore his as part of a semi-protest against the NCAA for briefly suspending him, and then most of his teammates donned the look in support of him.*
*My excuse was that I bumped my cheek while going for the alarm clock, and my Bern-Band of choice was Batman glow-in-the-dark.
The Red Storm earned a No. 2 seed that year and kept the look through the NCAA Tournament, which was three months before Nelly bounced on the scene with Country Grammar.
After brief NBA flings with Portland and San Antonio, Barkley now plays professionally in Poland. He scores 12.6 points per game for Polpharma, which is second in its league at 15-7.
Barkley’s time in the NBA was brief, but at least his fashion blunder is still around.
— — Edited by Realle Roth
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