It has been the burning question throughout this Miami Heat season, one that has been both distracting and compelling: Can those shorts possibly get any smaller or any tighter?
Understand, this gripping matter is not necessarily sown solely from this season.
It was, in fact, after Tyler Herro was drafted out of Kentucky in 2019 that he asked Heat equipment manager Rob Pimental if he had anything shorter than the Heat’s shortest shorts.
A seamstress was called in to assist.
“I’ve been wearing short shorts since middle school, actually,” Herro said of a fashion wave that has cut to the very fabric of today’s NBA. “I like ‘em short, I feel more comfortable on the floor with ‘em.”
In recent years, players have taken to rolling the waistbands on standard-issue NBA shorts to create the desired thigh reveal, a considerable change from the long, baggy look that former Heat player and assistant coach Juwan Howard helped cultivate with Michigan’s Fab Five Freshmen back in the early ’90s.
But now even inseams are being produced to align with the tightened demand.
Take, for example, Heat 2019 second-round pick KZ Okpala, who opts for Size 38 if available, with his 6-foot-8 build.
“I actually asked if I could get shorter shorts, just ‘cause that’s my style,” he said. “I played that way in college. So that’s just something that I’m comfortable with and that’s just my style.
“I like the look. And for me it’s more comfortable.”
EVEN OLD school with the Heat has moved new school, with Meyers Leonard asking for shorter than standard in order to highlight his quads.
Okpala doesn’t quite go that far.
“For me,” he said, “it’s more like it makes me feel ready to go.”
As long as they don’t go to great lengths.
“I mean they came like that and I liked that,” Okpala said of the current cut of the smaller waist sizes. “But if they would have come longer, I would have told him I need smaller.”
The trend has been traced to LeBron James’ move from the Heat back to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2015, aligning to the more tapered look of menswear in general.
Since then, although not to the degree of some college players, the NBA has tapered its approach, with the Heat part of the movement.
“I like the functionality,” Okpala said, with the Heat in the midst of a six-day All-Star break, with their schedule to resume Thursday night against the Orlando Magic at AmericanAirlines Arena.
