One of the biggest trends in on-court fashion from last season in the NBA was the emergence of the tied “ninja-style” headband, as the league put it.
Jrue Holiday was among the trendsetters with the tied headbands, and soon it had spread around the league to the point where Jimmy Butler, Jarrett Allen, De’Aaron Fox and numerous others could be seen sporting the look on the floor. It was clearly a popular look, but the league and teams apparently have some concerns about them, so much so that they will not allow players to wear them this upcoming season.
As ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski relayed on Monday, there are issues with consistency of the size and length of the headbands, and the Competition Committee will discuss them in their meeting on Monday to figure out how to possible handle going forward — but that they will not be approved for this season.
The NBA notified teams that it won't allow players to wear "ninja-style headwear" this season, NBA spokesman Mike Bass tells ESPN. The headwear "…hasn't been through the league approval process. Teams have raised concerns regarding safety and consistency of size, length …"
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 9, 2019
Bass: "When some players began wearing them last season, we didn't want to cause a disruption by intervening midseason…" NBA notified teams in May that the headwear "would not be a part of this seasons uniforms." https://t.co/23IjTaoT8v
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 9, 2019
Competition Committee is discussing issue in meetings today. As Bass said, teams raised concern about size, length "how they are tied which requires a thorough review before consideration of any rule change." Among players who wore them: Jimmy Butler, Jrue Holiday, Jarrett Allen. https://t.co/Agak7SLS9V
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 9, 2019
Uniform regulation remains one of the silliest strictly enforced rules in all of sports. Last year the NBA finally allowed players to wear whatever color shoes they wanted, but even for a league that’s as progressive on on-court fashion as the NBA, there are still processes that must be gone through to approve anything new.
I’m sure the concerns are over whether they can be secured well enough to avoid falling off and causing a hazard to player safety, but to my knowledge there weren’t any issues with that a year ago. Players liked them and fans seemed to be into the look as well, so it seems a bit silly that they couldn’t figure out a solution here with Nike to make the uniform this summer so players could keep rocking the look this season.
The amazing thing is how this became a thing that got on the court in the first place without the league realizing it, but now they’re going to have the necessary discussions and hopefully they can figure out how to regulate the headbands (?) to their satisfaction so players can wear them again.
