Fashion Forward

Daily Fashion Juice
Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Fashion Forward (or Guard)

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times; Middle: Chris Mcgrath/Getty Images

NOW Tristan Thompson (left), Kemba Walker (right) and THEN Samaki Walker in 1996 (middle).
By ALEX WILLIAMS



FANS are still chuckling about Charles Barkley bursting out of the garish purple sports jacket he wore to the National Basketball Association draft more than a quarter-century ago. And who could forget Joakim Noah of the Chicago Bulls striding onstage in an oversize tan tuxedo and a giant paisley bow tie that seemed straight out of the Ringling Brothers fall men’s line?

But at last week’s N.B.A. draft, at the Prudential Center in Newark, only one outfit seemed to blind onlookers and scare children: the royal blue crushed-velvet sports jacket and floral tie worn by Craig Sager, the television analyst famous in the hoops world for his outré ensembles.

Instead, the newly anointed basketball professionals, many enjoying a rare moment on national television, strode triumphantly onstage in handsomely tailored suits that flattered their superhuman, ectomorph frames.

“Before, players used to come looking right off the playground,” Mr. Sager said backstage before the main event, sounding like a lonely peacock. “Now they have handlers, they have agents, they all want to make them look nice.”

And it’s not just at the draft, of course. Players across the N.B.A. have raised their fashion game. For proof, look no further than Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade sitting front row at the recent Versace show in Milan, or Amar’e Stoudemire chumming around with Anna Wintour during New York Fashion Week. The rookies, some still teenagers, have come to recognize how their off-court wardrobe can influence their public image, and as such, their future endorsement deals.

About 20 of the 60 players selected were present at the Prudential Center. An air of giddy anticipation hung over the arena as the first pick of the 2011 draft was announced. As expected, Kyrie Irving, a 19-year-old point guard from Duke with a choirboy smile, was selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The 8,400 spectators erupted into applause. Irving coolly exchanged hugs with family and walked onstage with the studied calm of the Oscar winner for Best Actor. He wore a sleek navy pinstripe suit with a lavender striped necktie — courtesy of Giorgio Armani, and fitted at the designer’s megastore on Fifth Avenue a few days before. After putting on his Cavaliers cap, beaming for the cameras and answering countless questions about whether he could replace LeBron James in the hearts of Cavs fans, Irving expounded on his wardrobe choice in the de facto green room, a curtained-off area where he was joined by his father and sister, dressed in their Sunday best. He looked like the groom in a brideless wedding.

“I thought about it a lot, honestly,” said Irving, who was born in Australia and attended high school in New Jersey. Using the public relations skills you’d expect from a top pick who took an acting class at Duke, he added: “I wanted to be dressed with the best, and what better way to do that than be outfitted by Giorgio Armani?”

“I’m not into the baggy clothes,” he added.

Moments later, Derrick Williams, a forward with Arizona and the second pick in the draft, showed up in the green room. Wearing a conservatively cut black suit with a red silk tie by Élevée, he looked ready for a board meeting. And why not? The N.B.A. is serious business these days.

“This is the most important days of everybody’s lives,” said Williams, 20. “On draft day, you want to build your own brand.”

The procession continued onstage. The Brigham Young guard Jimmer Fredette ascended the stage in Joseph Abboud, the Kentucky guard Brandon Knight in Ermenegildo Zegna (“Whatever my agent tells me to get, I get,” he explained later).

In contrast to bygone years, the handful of players who pushed the style envelope did so in understated ways. The Charlotte Bobcats’ new guard, Kemba Walker, called to mind a Gatsby-era dandy: he wore a bespoke steel-blue suit, a tasteful matching argyle tie and pale pink saddle oxfords. “Dress to impress,” he said. The Indiana Pacers draft pick Kawhi Leonard sported a custom navy suit with white piping on the lapels that called to mind a British schoolboy jacket.

Perhaps the most GQ-ready look was found on Tristan Thompson, the fourth player selected, also by the Cavaliers. The forward from the University of Texas wore a custom charcoal suit by Paper Brown Bag, a Harlem label, that called to mind a very fashionable Pee-wee Herman with tapered pants and a shrunken jacket. Thompson, 20, comes to the league with a taste for Ferragamo, YSL and Comme des Garçons. “I definitely like a European look, pride myself on the European style,” he said.

Longtime fans of the draft may mourn the passing of the crimson zoot suits and seven-button monstrosities of drafts gone by, clips of which still get played for laughs on ESPN. But today’s players are loath to end up on the N.B.A. equivalent of Mr. Blackwell’s worst-dressed list.

As Thompson put it, “Guys don’t want to be known as the clown of the group.”