NBA's Stern wrong to turn his back on hip-hop style

I'm a sportswriter and therefore uniquely unqualified to comment on what the minimum sartorial standards of a professional adult should be. (Ever taken a good look at the NBA media corps? Milan is prêt à porter. Press row is prêt à manger.)

But David Stern's new dress code for players isn't really about looking stylish. It's about turning down the volume on the NBA's hip-hop image. It's about kowtowing to out-of-touch corporate sponsors. It's about hypocrisy. And while I don't fully agree with Stephen Jackson and other players who say it's overtly racist, I'm not going to dress them down for raising the point.

Stern is right about one thing: His league has an image problem. But benches full of injured-reserve guys in suits won't stop the NBA's drift away from the beloved-by-the-masses NFL and toward the niche-level NHL.

Fans watch the players on the court, not the ones on the sidelines, and the NBA is hurting because the games are artless and the personalities are dull. When fans flocked to the league in the 1980s and '90s, it had nothing to do with Magic, Larry and Michael wearing fancy suits. (Magic and Michael did, anyway.) Fans aren't stupid. Clothes don't make the man -- and more important, they don't make someone a better shooter or ballhandler or defender.

More than other sports, basketball thrives on -- and markets -- style and individuality, on and off the court. A generation ago, that meant a parade of fur raincoats and 12-inch lapels in NBA locker rooms, but no one thought Clyde Frazier was really a pimp.

Stern and his sponsor pals -- I'm sure they're the driving force behind this dress code -- need to realize that in 2005, baggy jeans, throwback jerseys and a sheikdom's worth of bling don't automatically mark Allen Iverson as a thug. (Sorry, bad example.) Corporate America should know better. I don't remember Snoop Dogg rolling in "business casual" for any of his many commercials.

The NBA usually is more than happy to cash in on hip-hop culture. (Anyone who thinks that's not what the dress code is aimed at is delusional.) Rap music blares in arenas, and visitors to the league's Web site are welcome to drop more than $100 on the throwback jerseys in the NBA Soul collection.

If Stern expects fans to listen to 50 Cent at games and spend like him afterward, then the commissioner should let players look like rap stars, too.