Making a Shorts Story Longer

It is my opinion, all side issues being swept aside, that a man’s lower limbs, in order to preserve harmony of proportion, should be at least long enough to reach from his body to the ground.

--Abe Lincoln, 16th president

We can’t have players wearing shorts that hang down to the middle of their calf.

--Rod Thorn, NBA vice president

What is the most pressing problem in professional basketball (men’s) today?

Apparently, apparel.

Drugs? Gambling? Throwing fans through windows? Oh, sure, these subjects do come up. But every bit as controversial is the great “long shorts” debate, which Lincoln didn’t argue with Stephen Douglas, but which has Thorn at odds with NBA players from Stephon Marbury to Sherman Douglas.

The pants police have been busy. Over the last couple of weeks, the NBA has imposed fines of $2,500 apiece on random players--among them five Minnesota Timberwolves and two Portland Trail Blazers--for taking the court in baggy uniform shorts that hung beneath their knees.

“Don’t they have anything more important to worry about?” asked Marbury, a second-year guard for the Timberwolves and one of those penalized.

It’s an NBA edict:

No more droopy drawers.

In his office in New York, the NBA’s vice president of operations, Thorn, saying that the situation “has gotten out of control,” has also levied fines of $25,000 against Minnesota and Portland team management. Furthermore, warnings have gone out to dozens of other players from the Clippers, Philadelphia 76ers, Denver Nuggets, Toronto Raptors and Washington Wizards not to get caught with their pants down, or else.

Ironically, no Knickerbockers have yet been cited.

“We’ll do what they tell us,” said one Clipper, who asked not to be quoted by name, so as not to incur further wrath, “but this here is bull . . . , man.

“[Michael] Jordan could wear ‘em down to his ankles, if he felt like it. He’d just stop by the scorer’s table and drop off his fine.”

Enforcers gaining a reputation as the NBA’s “fashion police” have been going from gym to gym, inspecting the uniforms to ascertain whether they are, well, uniform. Pro players must--because of a rule instituted this season--wear shorts a minimum of one inch above the top of the knee.

Many have complied.

Plenty have complained, such as Denver rookie guard Bobby Jackson, who said, “It’s not the ‘60s anymore. I don’t want to be out there with my whole butt showing.”

The NBA’s player union has filed a grievance, director Billy Hunter calling the whole thing a waste of time.

Very few NBA players--John Stockton of the Utah Jazz a notable exception--wear short shorts. Some of the taller players wear XXXL shorts that could house Stockton and a family of four from Stockton.

A fad has to begin somewhere. Some believe this one was popularized by Jordan, who is often credited with popularizing everything from head to toe, including bald skulls and black sneakers.

Because he wears shorts under his shorts--Jordan superstitiously plays with a pair of University of North Carolina trunks under his Chicago Bull uniform--extra-baggy shorts became necessary. This, in turn, inspired the so-called “Fab Five” freshmen from the 1991-92 University of Michigan squad to play in shorts the size of parachutes.

Two of those Michigan Wolverine fashion plates, Chris Webber and Juwan Howard, are among the NBA players who have been warned by Thorn. They play in Washington, where nobody bugs President Clinton about jogging in baggy Arkansas Razorback shorts.

Television analyst Al McGuire once described the Michigan players as “baby boomers in bloomers.”

The NBA contends that in other sports, leagues have dress codes that standardize uniforms.

On the other hand, exceptions are made. Baseball players can wear their uniform pants as low or high as they like. Late in the season, the Cleveland Indians decided as a team to hitch up their breeches and reveal as much of their stockings as possible. Nobody got socked with a fine.

A 7-foot-4 Denver player, center Priest Lauderdale, said, “I’m a big guy, and for me to wear short shorts just isn’t right.”

His lower limbs do go down to the ground, a right for which Abe Lincoln fought.

Some guys, though, they just aren’t leg men.