Oh yeah, it’s my favorite semi-regular occurrence–mail day!
Mail day is usually immediately following an ESPN article, particularly those where race is an issue. Those people that think racism is dead clearly have never read my e-mail.
Well, this batch was fun. Not that large, but the e-mail I got was somewhat evenly divided between folks who agreed, those who didn’t, and those who said they agreed but really didn’t.

We’ll start with a sample from someone who agreed. This is Mike, from Seattle.
Bomani,
I read your article on ESPN.com and couldn’t agree with you more… even though I’m a 51 year old conservative guy.
I’ve watched professional basketball for almost 30 years (in fact I remember in my teens being in a free throw contest against one of the original Seattle Supersonics). Who really cares how a player dresses (my 13 year old son dresses like the “stereotypical” NBA player), how they wear their hair, or what type of music they may like? The way a NBA player dresses in no way impacts what’s important, and that’s how well they perform on the court.
Professional basketball players throughout history have always been unique characters, and basketball the most creative sport around. Let’s hope David Stern lets this dress code nonsense fade away.
Keep up the good work!
I must say that I really dig it when someone whose ideology is totally different from mine understands what I’m saying. It’s really interesting when that happens. But, I do hang with Kirk, so I should be somewhat used to it by now.
Here’s Paul in Minnesota. Paul really dug the piece, but I don’t think he sees that he and I really don’t agree at all. Now, when people tell me what a moron I am but proceed to get mad at things I didn’t say, I tell them to go read again. Curiously, I don’t do that when they like it but didn’t get it. So shameless I am.
bo-man,
excellent article and insights from different vantage points and on several fronts…
stern is seeing a significant decline in attendance at nba games, and like it or not, it’s because the people who can afford to pay from several to hundreds of thousands of dollars for suites, boxes, and season tix, are not pleased with the product on several different levels. with the troubling trend in declining attendance at stake, he needs find small ways to convince the ‘peeps’ who write-out the big checks, that they are serious about bringing this activity back toward the center for the sake of the masses.
whether the players like it or not, this is suppose to be a [professional] league/business venture on some level for which the players are required to make some small to modest contributions to in order to strengthen and benefit the overall long-term health of the product. if [professional] players can’t recognize the need to invest in their product in the macro-economic picture of the league, then they should all go figure out a better way to become millionaires away from basketball where they can do things on exactly their own terms.
if it keeps up the way its going, this league will be in jeopardy of going defunct in 10 years, or the players will be signing for cba-caliber money. people with significant disposable income to spend are apparently getting tired of the attitudes, behaviors, and value systems projected by this league, and stern recognizes it.
stern can afford to worry about the fans/supporters who contribute to the product on ancillary purchases after the big financial supporters are tokenly appeased. if there weren’t a need identified, then the league simply would not resort to this kind of tactic. hopefully some trustworthy individual can get it through to all the free-spirited individuals in the league who reject the notion of cultivating a more professional image. it works like a charm in the college ranks!
More than anything, I dug getting an e-mail that used the word “ancillary.”
Finally, we have Brady, a student at BYU-Hawaii. Brady’s not too bright.
Stern has NOTHING too lose. Players (like Iverson) can still be the punks they want to that imbarrass our nation at the Olympics even with address code. Its only to and from games and at press conferences. They can dress like pimps and clowns anywhere else they want to. Don’t blow it out of proportion. Fact is this trend of “ghetto ball” (pimp clothing, tatoo’s, gangster rap, and selfish weakly structured basketball) in the nba has a direct correlation to the decrease of American b-ball talent. That’s why the rest of the world is beating us and will continue to do so. Its lack of discipline. When you lose discipline you lose everything. You watch, this dress code is exactly the discipline the nba needs. It will only help society’s ability to respect this severly declined league.
For the record, I counted no less than ten spelling, punctuation, grammatical, and capitalization errors. Where’s the classroom discipline, kid?
The hate mail prize winner, though, is some kid at Wake Forest. Following a long-standing tradition, he says a lot of out of pocket things but forgot to sign his name. In fact, he sent this from a name where the display doesn’t even show up. People get really cowardly when they want to say things they know they ain’t got no bidness saying.
However, Google tells me this guy’s name is Daniel. Would love to put his whole name out there, but that’s bad business.
Bomani Jones
Your sarcasm is amazing. I never though someone would actually finish the whole article without saying that they were kidding. That was amazing. So deep and professional. O wait, you weren’t serious. You think that people making millions of dollars a year should be allowed to look like thugs. This dress code is not unreasonable at all. They should follow every rule and regulation with a smile on their faces. Most of these players cannot form a grammatical sentence. Without the NBA they would be in minimum wage work. NBA athletes are some of the most unprofessional “professionals” on the planet. Do you think the CEO of a large corporation would come to work in his doo-rag and throwback jersey. I also would like to hear about what you thought about Kenyon Martin’s comment about wanting a stipend to pay for his suit. That was disrespectful to all the fans and was quite unprofessional. These players are role models whether they want to be or not. It is part of job. They get paid millions of dollars so they should act like adults, not drug-dealing thugs. Maybe where they come from that is a great job, but most of the nation does not. They are “professional” athletes and they should start acting like and “professionals” like yourself should start acting like one and stop supporting these thugs.
sincerely,
your biggest fan
I replied to Daniel, and it went something like this…
Sir, you have a bit of a problem. You asked me if those players can form a grammatical sentence. Well, all sentences–even incomplete ones–are grammatical. They should be grammatically correct, though. So, can you form a grammatically correct sentence?
And is that required to do their jobs–play basketball?
And what about wearing jeans makes you a drug dealing thug?
Curiously, I’ve yet to get a reply from Daniel.
But how amazing is it that dressing like most young black men dress makes you look like a drug dealer? News flash–the majority of young black men don’t sell dope. Another news flash–the majority of drug dealers is not comprised of young black men. Strictly by the numbers, dressing like a drug dealer would mean most black folks would have to get a straightening comb and some ghastly Kabuki-like foundation.
These e-mails always make me wonder what people really think of me when they see me on the street. All these degrees ain’t worth nothin’. And since it’s unlikely my jeans are gonna get any smaller anytime soon, I’ll be dealing with these morons forever.
Oh well. Stupid people ain’t never gonna dictate how this shop is run, ya dig?