Union files grievance over fines for long shorts
By
Chris Sheridan
Have the NBA's fashion police gone too far?
The players' union thinks so, and it wants an arbitrator to decide whether it was fair to fine 13 players $10,000 apiece for wearing their shorts too long.
The union filed a grievance Wednesday over the league's renewed infatuation with fabric lengths, asking the new arbitrator -- Calvin Sharpe of Case Western Reserve University -- to hear his first case.
"We think they're being too puritanical about the whole issue," union director Billy Hunter told ESPN.com. "The fines and their whole attitude appear insidious and draconian."
The league has been on the lookout for violations of the rule that states a player's shorts cannot extend below 0.1 inch above the knee. To date, $10,000 fines have been handed out to New York's
Nate Robinson and
Stephon Marbury; Philadelphia's
John Salmons,
Kyle Korver,
Allen Iverson and
Kevin Ollie; Indiana's
Jermaine O'Neal,
Stephen Jackson and
Jamaal Tinsley;
Jeff McInnis of New Jersey; and
Voshon Lenard,
DerMarr Johnson and
Andre Miller of Denver.
On top of the player fines, the teams were fined $50,000 for each violation.
The league acknowledged receipt of the union's grievance and said it had cited more than twice as many violators as it did a year ago.
"There are rules, just as there are rules with other parts of our game," NBA deputy commissioner Russ Granik told ESPN.com's Darren Rovell. "It just seems like this year, there has been laxity on the part of some of the teams."
In its grievance, the union argued that the players were being unfairly penalized for wearing uniforms manufactured by Reebok, the league's official uniform provider, and issued by the teams.
When a team is deemed to be in violation, it first gets a warning. If the NBA deems the effort to shorten the shorts to be insufficient, only the team gets fined first. Then, after a third violation, the team and player get fined.
Many teams have privately complained that the league gave no warning that it would be scrutinizing the length of shorts during the summer or even the preseason. Teams generally ordered this season's uniforms during last season. And they apparently can't just call Reebok and have smaller shorts overnighted; it takes a while.
Some teams' executives have said the league could have made things easier by giving Reebok guidelines to help make sure everyone was in compliance. Instead teams started getting hit with demands to shorten the shorts once the regular season started, forcing them to send their shorts out for tailoring.
"They need to back off," Hunter said. "To penalize a guy $10,000 when the uniforms are manufactured by someone else. Maybe we should bring a suit against the manufacturers and seek some kind of relief from them."
The league has observers at every NBA arena, and staff members logging game videotapes at NBA Entertainment headquarters can keep an eye out for uniform violations if they're asked to do so by the league office in New York. It was unclear exactly who or what was driving the league's latest crackdown on long shorts, but many -- including O'Neal -- were quick to accuse the league of trying to sanitize and/or eliminate hip-hop style.
"I understand the need to appeal to a fan base who buys tickets, but sometimes I think it's like throwing the baby out with the bath water," Hunter said. "Too much scrutiny is going on, and what's it's doing is interfering with the play."
The union filed a similar grievance three years ago after several players were fined for wearing their shorts too low, but a settlement was reached and the case never made it before an arbitrator.
