I am certainly not a fashion expert or a style guru – being color “deficient” doesn’t help! However, when it comes to recent trends in uniforms, I feel I have to speak up!

 What are with the baggy uniforms? There are some guys out there playing with shorts that don’t stop until they are below their knees – some women might compare them to carpi’s! And the uniform tops are so baggy they look more like a baggy t-shirt one would wear to bed! Seriously?! Do they have to be that baggy?!

Don’t get me wrong, I certainly don’t want to go back to the days-of-old where the uniforms were as tight as spandex and the shorts probably revealed far more than many wanted to know. But, the recent trend has been to the rather far extreme. As I said, shorts on some guys (mainly small guards) end up below their knees and tops on most guys are so baggy I think guys are battling for more than position under the basket, they are trying to get unwound from an opponents jersey.

 There is another problem. The uniforms are so loose and the shorts hardly ever tied tight, that there is quite a bit of time wasted while referees ask for players to constantly tuck their jerseys back in. It is a rule, after all, that uniforms be tucked in so the uniform doesn’t come into play during a game.

If a ball touches a player’s uniform on the way out of bounds, even if it might not touch the player’s body, it is considered having touched his body. So, refs want the uniforms tucked in to avoid issues like this. Of course, uniforms are so baggy these days, it doesn’t matter if they are tucked in. That’s because sometimes the ball might touch a uniform but the player is actually two feet from the ball!

It is really ridiculous! Do the uniforms really have to be this baggy? If this is a fashion “thing”, what exactly are the players trying to “say” or represent? And who exactly is in charge of picking the size of the uniforms? Can we chat about not giving the 5’6″ point guard an XL, but more like a M or L at most?

I am worried that if these uniforms keep getting bigger and baggier, some championship game is going to be decided by them. Imagine a guard bringing the ball up the court, but only dribbling in one hand. That’s because he has the other hand holding up his shorts. However, his defender then decides to get aggressive and the guard needs to use both hands to protect the ball. That results in his shorts sliding down, he trips, the ball comes lose, the defender (who is now using one hand to hold his shorts up) gets a free lay-up at the buzzer for the win. Now, that would be a strange finish to a game! And all thanks to a baggy jersey!