How the NBA tunnel walk has transformed player fashion

It used to be so easy.

A generation ago, the biggest wardrobe decision a player had to make before heading to a game was the color of his suit or whether to wear a tie. Those who truly wanted to stand out — like Walt Frazier or Charles Oakley — would find a way by wearing exotic fabrics or ostrich leather shoes. But, for the most part, the differences were subtle.

Fast forward to 2014, when the NBA’s enforcement of its dress code was informally relaxed and picking out a “fire fit” has become the game before the game. Rainbow-striped furs. Tweed kilts. Darth Vader-like puffer coats. Almost anything goes. So much so, that a player’s tunnel walk — the televised arrival of players to an arena — has become the NBA’s version of the red carpet.

This pregame ritual has become an important marketing opportunity for players who want to establish their brand and designers who want to be associated with rich and powerful athletes. Athletes in other sports, primarily the NFL, have recently attempted to get in on the action, but it’s the NBA where the pregame fashion game is played out at the highest level.

“The NBA are the guys that everyone wants to work with,” said Daniel Solomon, a Jericho-based fashion stylist and personal shopper who has worked with close to 100 professional athletes. “In the NFL, guys are running around with helmets. In the NBA, everyone knows their faces and names. Combine that with the tunnel, and you basically have created a fashion runway before every game.”

Tunnel vision

Ah yes, the tunnel. You can thank, or blame, social media and a former NBA employee for the fact that this has become such a well-covered pregame spectacle that it is a mainstay of ESPN’s coverage and can feature special lighting, music and branded backdrops.

Chad Brown was a fashion-loving production assistant working for the NBA in 2016 when he pitched the idea of featuring the overlap of fashion and basketball to his bosses at the NBA.

“They were like, 'No, we’re going to focus on things that were on the court,' ” Brown said. “I was like, 'I’ll just do it on my own.' I did and then it just kept growing and growing.”

Today, Brown’s Instagram site @nbafashionfits has 528,000 followers, including such high-profile names as LeBron James and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Not only has it become a full-time business, but it has spawned a number of high-profile competitors, most notably SLAM Magazine’s @LeagueFits, which has more than 1 million followers. Players and teams themselves have also gotten in on the act, regularly showing game-day fits on their social media accounts.

Eye for fashion

Of course, some teams are more fashion-conscious than others. Oklahoma City, led by MVP/style king Gilgeous-Alexander, is usually mentioned near the top of the league. The Knicks were considered to be somewhere in the middle until this summer when they signed  Jordan Clarkson to a one-year contract.

Clarkson, who has come off the bench for the majority of his 12-year career, is widely considered a fashion all-star. His acquisition was considered so noteworthy in the fashion press that Vogue magazine immediately booked him for a daylong fashion shoot around New York. The resulting spread included a shot of the Knicks shooting guard wearing a neon-yellow fur coat as he stopped by a bodega for an egg and cheese and a photo of him visiting the Statue of Liberty wearing a white skirt.

“I don’t have a stylist,” shrugged Clarkson as he sat at his locker pulling on a pair of Western-inspired black boots after a recent Knicks game. “I just pick clothes that I like and do my thing. Ever since I was a kid, I laid my clothes out, laid my jewelry out before I went to sleep. And then it’s how I feel in the morning. I might come in pajamas or whatever and try to look cool.”

Clarkson isn’t the only fashion-conscious Knick. Karl-Anthony Towns has also often been featured in the tunnel press, though, as Brown points out, the fact that he is 7-feet tall “often limits him” because he has to get almost all of his clothes custom made. Towns said he doesn’t work with a stylist, but presumably gets a lot of advice from his fiancee, Jordyn Woods, a model who has her own fashion line.

“I have an eye for it,” Towns said. “I know what kinds of cuts and patterns I like and certain brands offer an opportunity to do custom. A lot of my fits come out 10 minutes before I leave for a game. I just randomly pick them out.”

Other Knicks admit their style choices are not so random.

“The games matter,” Josh Hart said of his wardrobe decisions. “If you are playing a trash team on the road in a trash city, I’m probably going to wear some comfortable clothes. Some sweatpants. Some Nike sweats. Any playoff game will be a good fit. National TV game is a good fit. Big rivalry game, big fit.”

Designer deals

The pressure to up one’s tunnel game leads many players to stylists or personal shoppers who can help them present a certain type of image or just be comfortable when not wearing a uniform. Shortly after former Knicks center Isaiah Hartenstein signed a three-year, $87 million contract with fashion forward Oklahoma City, he hired Solomon to overhaul his off-the-court look, which at the time was pretty much limited to Nike sweats.

“For a guy like Isaiah, he’s not trying to sit front row at the Maison Margiela show in Paris. He just wants to dress well and feel good on a daily basis,” Solomon said. “He wants to concentrate on basketball. So, we do everything for him.”

"Everything" includes creating a full packing list for road trips, including off day travel outfits. Game day outfits will include details from sneakers to jewelry to the right cut of undershirt. Before games, both home and away, Hartenstein will Facetime Solomon to quickly go over the look.

The attention to detail has already paid off, helping Hartenstein land a lucrative endorsement deal with Skechers. Picking up extra money from endorsements has become a big part of the tunnel walk.

Many players and some teams, including the Knicks, have deals with designers and brands that players will wear in the tunnel. The Knicks' creative director, Ronnie Fieg, is also the CEO of Kith, a high-end streetwear brand that designed the Knicks' city edition uniform and has co-branded collections with the team, including a leather moto jacket that retails for $1,495. Knicks players, most notably Jalen Brunson, the face of the campaign, can often be seen wearing Kith in the tunnel.

“Every brand wants to be shown in the tunnel,” Solomon said. “People are getting deals with companies who want them to be holding their drink in the tunnel.”

Starting a trend

In recent years, other sports have started to follow the NBA’s lead.

In 2023, ESPN started to include “player arrivals” in its NFL coverage and in late 2024 the league launched the Instagram site @NFLstyle that now has 97,000 followers. Locally, no NFL player has tried to take more advantage of this development than Giants offensive lineman Jermaine Eluemunor.

Eluemunor, who works with a stylist named Marty McFresh, has arrived at stadiums in everything from a somewhat conservative houndstooth suit to a leather pants and vest outfit that was worn without a shirt.

“I want to wear things that are going to test my confidence,” Eluemunor said. “In the past, I struggled with confidence on the field. Now, my confidence starts with how I walk in the building with the outfit. Fashion helps my confidence. That’s how I developed the mindset I have now.”

Also integrating fashion into their sports coverage is the WNBA, which had three Liberty players — Sabrina Ionescu, Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones — invited to the Met Gala, the holy grail of fashion events, and MLB, which has started showing player arrivals before big games. The only major sport that appears to be lagging behind is the NHL, which didn’t dump its suit-and-tie dress code until this season.

Interestingly, the NBA still does officially have a dress code. Former commissioner David Stern first introduced it in 2005 largely in reaction to Allen Iverson’s iconic hip-hop-influenced style. Ironically, that code — which required players to wear “business casual” attire — led to many players going the high-fashion route as they crafted suits to express their own personal style. Since Adam Silver became commissioner, enforcement of the dress code has been nonexistent even though it still stands.

The only notable dress-code violation that has been issued since the teams played in the bubble in 2020 was after Game 7 of the Western Conference finals last season when the Thunder's Jalen Williams was fined $25,000 for wearing a T-shirt with a profane word on it to his postgame news conference.

“I think the NBA realized that this is something that’s good for them” Brown said of the tunnel walk. “It’s a way for guys who aren’t superstars in other ways, to create their own brand. And it’s a way to draw new fans, people who maybe weren’t always basketball fans, into the game. It’s good for the game.”