Teams take issue with enforcement of new dress code

NBA players are steaming over the league’s strict enforcement of the one-inch shorts rule, and they have unusual allies: their own teams, who are just as upset over the fact that they’re forking over thousands of dollars in fine money for something that isn’t their fault.

Six players, including the Knicks’ Stephon Marbury and Nate Robinson, have already been fined $10,000 apiece for wearing shorts that exceed the allowable length. This week, they are supposed to join four Sixers, including Allen Iverson and team rep Kevin Ollie, in filing a grievance, seeking to overturn the fines.

Team executives and players have no idea who is making the inspections – is it league personnel sitting in the stands, refs, Spike Lee? – but several teams this past week received notifications that they were going to be fined $20,000 per infraction.

First a little background to shorts-gate: The 400 players don’t dress themselves. They wear uniforms provided by Reebok, official supplier for the NBA. The league is standing firm behind its rule that pants can’t come down lower than one inch above the knee.

“That’s why I’ve got some players rolling up their waist-bands, to make themselves legal,” said Detroit president Joe Dumars. “We were just warned about it. But I don’t think it looks very good when guys are playing with their waistbands turned inside-out.”

This is the same league that imposed a new dress code on its players this season to help improve its image. David Stern wants players to dress like professionals off the floor, in coats and ties. But on it, he has what looks like a church-league game, with several players running around with their waist-bands showing. How’s that for some warped logic?

Teams are getting in a nasty mood over the enforcement of the rule. While players get $10,000 fines for every infraction, they aren’t supposed to be docked until the fourth step of the process. First, teams are warned about potential violations in a letter. Then the team is subject to two fines – $20,000 per infraction, per player – before the player is finally penalized. In the Sixers’ case, players were notified of their fines before the team received its warning.

“It’s ridiculous and it’s absurd,” said one Eastern Conference GM whose team received a warning letter this past week. “For one thing, we don’t make the uniforms. Reebok makes them. So they should have our players measured before the season and outfitted correctly. Aren’t we a professional league? Isn’t this the NBA? It’s an embarrassment. The league is out of control on this.”

The league talked to the NBA Players Assn, over the last few days about possibly altering, for lack of a better word, its penalties. The league knows it will look preposterous if it begins taking money from players who are merely wearing uniforms that are team-issued. And it will look equally stupid to fine teams who merely are entrusted with handing out the uniforms. The league’s decision to call a halt to the madness while Reebok delivers the correct shorts would stop the players’ plans to go to an arbitrator to have the fines wiped out

Maybe as players head to the tailors to pick up their new sports coats and suits, they can bring their pants and have them shortened, too.