Hear They Come | The Right Fit

the world sports and NBA basketball included. Hours before tip off, Alex Subers is preparing for what is arguably one of his most significant assignments of the day, typically leaving the office around two pm and get into the arena around two thirty. It changes depending on the start time of the game, but it's typically you know, five hours before

the game. As the seventy Sixers team photographer, the twenty six year old Subers has to be in a lot of places when he's shooting a game and needs to keep his head and eyes on swivels to capture lots

of things. But as critical as it is for him to be in the perfect baseline position for a signature Ben Simmons mean mug pose after a dunk or an immediately viral Joel embiid swooping airplane celebration, Supers also has to be ready for another very particular type of shot, the walk in photo, and the only way to get it is by being one of the first people in the building. The walk in photo is when the players are dressing up as they're coming in for game nights.

So you're seeing shoes, pants, top, it's a shirt, jacket, whatever, to the tunnel or get out of their car. It's to show their heading into the game that night. Over the last couple of years, the walk in shot has become musty social media material. And while these photos and videos have proliferated across all professional sports, in no league is this content more compelling than in the NBA. Fashion is such an integral part of what the MBA players

love to celebrate. This is des Rondor set, the Sixers vice president of business development, take the walking photos, as we call them, the players coming off the bus walking into the game. I've never seen a moment that has nothing to do with the sport itself be celebrated as much. I know we do it at the seventy six years, but ESPN and TNT part of that lead up to the game is showing the players walking off the bus and highlighting what they're actually wearing. Think of guys like

Russell Westbrook, Dwayne Wade, Lebron James, and Chris Paul. These are all stars who study style like they would game film. It really gives them the opportunity to connect with their fans and people off the court, you know, which is really what we're doing on social media all the time. So I think it makes a lot of sense. Jamie Losanti is a senior editor for Sports Illustrated, and she

helps curate the publication's annual Fashionable fifty project. These guys have really they put a lot of work into that five fifteen second walk from the arena tunnel into the locker room. On the surface, shooting a walk in photo might seem like it gets kind of mundane, you know, a player walks into arena and the photographer takes the picture.

For Supers, it's become the exact opposite and an aspect of the gig that he admits he never really saw coming when he first got into photography a bunch of years ago. It's actually one of my favorite parts of the night. It's one of the only times that I'm actually able to get a little bit creative, you know, game nights, game nights is for a photographer are pretty straightforward, right, Like, I don't have control over the lighting in the arena

during the game. I can't really move around too much during the game, so you're typically you're getting some the same photos every night of gameplay. But that's why when you're doing the walk in photos, like, you can shoot it in so many different ways. I can mess with the lighting. I can shoot it with a hard on camera flash. I can shoot it with actual strobes set up in the hallway. I can go out into the parking lot and shoot them kind of getting out of

their cars and have that vibe. So there's like all these different ways that I can mess around with the lighting or just the location of where I'm shooting them for their walk in that kind of make it a little more fun. Well, it might be a bit of a stretch to say that style has become a synonymous as skill with NBA players, the premise isn't that far fetched. Fashion is a massive part of the NBA brand and

especially individual players brands. We now live in the world of League Fits, which is an Instagram account with nearly five hundred and sixty thousand followers that's dedicated exclusively to NBA player fashion. What's interesting is just how much more important it's gotten over the last couple of years. So I started three years ago with the team, and my first year we would occasionally do it. We weren't doing

it for every game. It was just like it was a big game or if it was playoffs or something like that, we would do it. But it was not by no means was the like every game we were there and had to be there for walking's right. But starting the next year, for the last two years, it's one of those things that has just like we've seen it taken off and it's just like there's there's Instagram accounts that are literally built around what these guys are

wearing pregame. It's gotten so important over the last two years, and I think, you know, it just helps them build their brand and it gives them an opportunity to have people see them not just in their uniform. If you revisit the history of the Philadelphia seventy sixers, you'll find

legendary figures from every era. Wilt in the nineteen sixties, Julius in the seventies and eighties, Ai in the nineties and two thousands, For as much as these Hall of Famers were recognized for their talent on the court, they also intersected into the realm of fashion as well. In today's NBA, plenty of seventy sixers are DRIP certified and carving out their own identity through fashion. On this edition of Here They Come, we examine the crossover between the

seventy Sixers brand and the fashion world. Welcome to Here They Come, the longest form narrative podcast series from the seventy Sixers podcast network. I'm Brian Seltzer, and this episode is called The Right Fit. How Fashion is woven into the seventy six Ers fabric. It was a few weeks before the start of training camp this fall, and new seventy sixer Howell Nato was outfitted for the occasion. Except

the occasion had nothing to do with basketball. Neto was in New York at Mercedes Benz of Manhattan, walking a makeshift runway as part of an event for the city's famed Fashion Week. So it wasn't totally my idea. Now, this was the handiwork of NATO's manager, who Nato says has been trying to break him into the fashion world for a few years now, I'm like, you know, it's not really me. I don't really like it. But when that opportunity came and I was in Fiey the New

York Fashion Week. Of course it was in New York, very close from here, so I got invited to that, to that show, and I was like, okay, let me, let me try. I'm going to do my best to describe what Netta was wearing a long, two button, single breasted suit jacket accented by a color fade of navy to white that went from top to bottom and around the sleeves as well. He also had on jet black

pants and shiny black dress shoes. He was pretty fun, you know, because he was all athletes, so I got to know a lot of a lot of other athletes from other sports. He was something new for me. I haven't done anything, not even close so that. I've never even being watching a fashion show before. So it was a good experience. Well, Neda might be the only member of the seventy sixers who post runway chops. He has plenty of teammates who are fashion conscious. There's Tobias Harris.

My style this year, I kind of step out the box a little bit in different areas and whatnot. Fashion is definitely key, is a way to expression itself. Josh richardson Basketball fashion user, I think it's all intertwined in my life. At least, just being for me and myself, I think is probably the biggest thing. Of course, Ben Simmons and even young batist Thible has gotten in the game a bit thanks to Harris providing the custom suit

hook up. So Buys took me and Mario to like his designers store and we picked out like fabrics, We picked out every like I had no idea what I was doing. We're picking out all sorts of stuff, and it was cool. It was overwhelming. But then to like see the finished product and then put it on and then be able to like wear it on the court, like on the bench, and like show off and feeling us slick in my custom suit, it was pretty cool. Virtually every NBA player on every NBA team, there's some

consideration given to game day fashion. I would say a hell of a lot of NBA players care what they look like when they're walking to the game or whether they're just like you know, shooting an Instagram photo. Basically, this again a sports Illustrated Senior editor Jamie Lasanti. When we put together our annual Fashionable fifty lists for Sports Illustrated, it's really hard not to make a full list of

fifty NBA players. You could totally do it. We should probably do like a one off NBA only and now, of course the w NBA is coming in strong and they are killing it just as much, so we could definitely do a whole basketball only list, But there is no scientific we need to get the stats out there. There's definitely no scientific studies being done. But I would say that a ton of NBA players are interested in this, and the ones who aren't are definitely hearing it from

their teammates. How much influence do basketball players wield in the fashion industry? Who wears what when can have the power to make or break brands. Over the years, it's become really interesting to see how much the two worlds have really converge. The fashion world is really interested in what athletes are doing, and they want them to be wearing their stuff, so they've changed their ways into to get these guys and these women wearing what they have

out there. In other words, athlete fashion has become big business. This is des roon door set from the Sexers. You're seeing a lot of players now leverage the actual pregame walk in into larger partnership deals with some of these brands.

Typically you would see star players having footwear sneaker deals, but now the most fashionable people in the NBA, whether they are self touted or you know, there's a consensus a lot of the players that have leverage to walk in have used that to sign larger fashioning based deals. Think if someone like Ben Simmons, for instance, if you see him in his cities before or after a game, he's probably got something in his ears. It's not a

coincidence that those are Beats by Dre products. Here's Alex Supers. It's almost like its own little side business that's going on. Right. We're like, you know, if Ben might have a sponsor that he's got to be you know, rapping, whether maybe it's Beats, Like maybe Beats has new headphones or something. It's like, we need a picture of Ben wearing these new Beats headphones. Like walking in it is important business

for these guys as well. It's very unique and I think that's a trend will see moving more to the norm versus the exception. Similar to the broader fashion world, there are plenty of stylistic subgenres supported by NBA players. Jamie Lasanti and our collaborators on the Sports Illustrated Fashionable fifty break the yearly list into categories like icons, trend setters,

street style Stars, Classics, and rising Stars. There really is so many different avenues and ways that people express themselves. I think one of the most interesting ones that we've seen is what we've called in the past the difference makers. You know, so people who are really using their fashion and using what they wear to send a message. You've got the seeker guys, the accessory guys who are always

wearing the hats and the watches and the jewelry. And then you've got the people who, you know, we kind of call them like the wild ones. They Russell Westbrooks and even like an Odell Beckham, who it really doesn't matter what day it is, you will not be able to guess what they're going to come out in, you know, because it could be anything from you know, wearing some really sharp suit and then the next day they come

out and they're in a completely different look. When it comes to the seventy six ers, the consensus is that Ben Simmons probably gets the most widespread recognition for his game. Ben was an interesting one because he made our Fashionable fifty list pretty early on. You know, in his career,

he quickly created his own personal brand of style. You know, he was always kind of creative and again sort of like a Russell Westbrook, always had that body type that was pretty easy for him to go out and get clothes from different designers or different people. Alex Subers, the seventy six ers photographer, has shot Simmons as much as anyone. Ben has a very clean style where he doesn't wear

a lot of flashy or outrageous things. He keeps it very simple, like neutral tones, neutral colors, like it's very concise, it's very deliberate. He's definitely a little bit more on the kind of creative, cool, laid back kind of thing where he's he's really embracing both street style and then he'll also you know, you also see him wear a suit and a turtle nack or something like that. You know. So I think he's definitely has been one of the people to break out almost instantly as they arrived in

the league. Even though Simmons is the lone sixer who layed the spot on the twenty nineteen SI Fashionable fifty, Losanti says, the gap between him and some of his teammates isn't that wide. I think Tobias is definitely someone who we can keep an eye out. You know, we always have a rising Stars category on our list, so perhaps he can be in the running there. But he certainly wants to be noticed and he certainly is taking some risks seeing him wear some crazy things, whether it's

striped pants here and there or whatever. And he again has a different body type. So I think that's what makes it really fun and interesting is seeing how these guys, you know, adapt their personal style to what you know, what they have and what their body type is. So he's definitely one to watch. We'll see, we'll see how things shake out. Josh Richardson's efforts haven't gone unoticed either. He's one who is more of a risk taker, and he's definitely also just kind of laid back and cool.

He's rocking the flannels and you know, plaids and lots of as leisure, which is great. And I think he's also really into his sneakers and you can't sleep on the big Man's low key stylings. Alex Supers weighs in. You get the Joel where like Joel is dressing up for the game, like he's wearing some some high end designer stuff and he's say, he goes pretty flashy, like he doesn't do it much. But when Joel dresses up for a game, like he goes to the top. When

Joe goes for it, he goes for it. Taken on the whole, the Sixers roster reflects a range of fashion as diverses the men who wear the franchise his signature red, white and blue colors. I'll get texts from guys that like we'll say like yo, I can't see the walk in pick or something, just because like they I don't know. They want to see it. They want to see what the outfit looks like. They want to know what kind of photos they might have or after the game to

be posting and look, they love it. Back in the nineteen sixties, of course, there were no cell phones or social media platforms that now give celebrity athletes and everyday people like the power to express themselves to anyone anytime anywhere had color photography wasn't even really mainstream yet, So imagine for a moment the type of engagement that Will chamberlain walking content would have gotten if the technology of

his era were on par with today's standards. A Bleacher Report article from April twenty seventeen sighted Chamberlain is one of the players most responsible for bringing the style to the NBA that was emblematic of and fresh for that period. Around the same time that Wilt was racking up historic feat after historic feat, a young man with pro potential

was coming of age in Brooklyn. Lloyd Bernard Free loved the New York Picks, and in particular one of Chamberlain's chief rivals, Walt Clyde Fraser, whose bold, outlandish outfits were and still to this day remain the stuff of legend. Essentially tailored for one man and one man old even though he's older, what he you know, he always came out,

he was clean, always at the game. Well, Fraser's style was like you know, he was, he was king, and he came out and did his thing kind of like you know, try to piggy back golf dad a little bit to seeing how he was dressed. After starting at Guldford College, World he Free went on to become a second round pick in the Sixers. On the floor, he was known for his potent scoring and smooth arcing jump shot. He wants to average thirty points per game and earned

an All Star nine in nineteen eighty. These days, anyone familiar with World be Free probably recognizes him for his creative, colorful suits as much as anything else. He estimates his suit collection tops three hundred. But the thing is, you know, if they could talk, they had, they would have something. They have a lot to say as suits, you know, because every I guess, every time I you know, I try to match up, try to make sure the shoes,

the shirt to tie. You know, everything's coordinated. You know, you got to coordinate and coordinate you get it right, you know. So that's how I like to always do it. World B. Free is distinct, that much is for certain. Between his playing days and his two and a half decades as the Sixers ambassador of basketball, Free is kept company with some of the most fashioned forward Sixers. He was a team mate of the always staffer Julia Servant.

Some of Julie's style is a businessman Do's a guy that when you look at him and say, all right, that's a clean cut man, you know, does his thing sometimes like his wife dressed him, so you know, but for most of the time there's a different style for me, because I guess we're from different places anyway. But his style is is more more more business like. He just

he just looked nice in his stough. Decades later, when world fe was retired, he returned to the Sixers in his current front office role, and he had a front row seat to watch a six foot guard from Georgetown. He become an international fashion figure. Alan changed up a lot of stuff, you know, Alan, When I remember him with Larry Brown, he'd gold Larry Brown to half of

fifty more gray hairs. And he remember him coming into the building when he his rookie year had his pants always down, you know, below his butt, you know, and and his hood the hoodie on and everything and a do rag, you know, and you're coming into practice. I remember somebody was simple. It was somebody on the team at that time was saying where you know that stuff? Alan? And I was Allen and gout On is working more

than somebody's caught, you know what? I mean, it's different, it's a different trend, but that's expensive stuff he got on there, you know, so and and Allen was letting a way not tell him what to do. I mean, if I was a young feller at that time, I would have liked that. You know, that was something that I could I could have done. And that's precisely what a countless number of people did, not just in the Delaware Valley, but around the world. Iverson's style of play

made him an NBA favor. He's often referred to as the toughest player pound for pound in league history. But without his image, Iverson might not have ever ascended to become one of the most transcendent global superstars in the history of professional sports. To have an image, you've got to have style, and I was all his own before Instagram, before designer brands were even thinking about dressing these guys,

before we had skinny suits. There was a NBA era before with guys like Iverson, who you know, really left their mark on basketball and just style in general. Iverson's style was almost more like a movement. In an article published on the website hype Beast in twenty sixteen, Iverson was described as the NBA's unapologetic streetwear hero and lauded

for bringing hip hop front center for basketball fans. Sports Illustrated Senior editor Jamie Lasanti, a lot of people were mimicking his style and it really became part of the culture, and it really speaks to how you know, music and sports and fashion really all connect. And he of course had a personal brand of style on his own, and he was an icon on the court, and he definitely is someone that can be tagged as starting this conversation

about fashion and MBA. We good. Oh, you know, I just felt like I was influencing guys that wanted to just be themselves. Nothing bad about it, no will will intentions or nothing like that. You know. It was just guys wanted to dress like they wanted to address. Iverson was the unquestionable face of streetwear. Growing up in the Hampton Roads region of Coastal Virginia, he always dreamed of

having his own shoe. He got it, of course, from Rebuked for as different, unique, and refreshingly brash as Iverson's style was, it was also real and authentic and he had no intentions of changing. Not the answer, not even after then Commissioner David Stern implemented a dress code two thousand and five that came to benown as the Iverson rule. I know is that the Union said it was a good thing to do. I did it, and then they

attacked me on it. And the dress code was you could wear jeans, just wear a pair of shoes and a shirt with a collar. But our players went over the top. Frankly, they got these great bodies and they just began to be on Gentleman's Quarterly and Vogue and a little kinds of fancy places. And then they took it to the next level. They started designing their own fashion lines. I think it's great that moment in the NBA. It was really important because it did give the players

the ability to start expressing themselves. It kind of helped them understand that fashion was something that was important to them and they didn't want to be told, you know, how to dress. When we plot this NBA fashion twenty years from now, I think at that point in two thousand five will be a big one on the timeline. A decade and a half later, the og himself has been keeping tabs on the evolution of the revolution. He ushered it. I love it. I love everybody having their

own originality, everybody getting themselves. You know, that's what it was about. Everybody don't play the same basketball game, so why would everybody address the same you know what I mean. I love what guys are doing, you know, to each his own and I think it's dope, you know what I mean. As far as them taking it far and beyond. Fashion is an intrinsic part of the seventy Sixers history.

It's one of the reasons why the organization is focusing on fashion for its latest installment and it's seventy Sixers Crossover series. The initiative agan last fall with a highly successful seventy Sixers Crossover art exhibition, The seventy Sixers Crossover Who was designed to celebrate what we got the seventy Sixers think make the city of Philadelphia unique. Des ro Indoor set the Sixers vice president of business Development, and that's with a focus on lifestyle, lifestyle to us income,

to sys these four major parts. That's art, fashion, food, and music. That's the culture that we like to think that the MBA has a larger platform seamlessly integrates into and we're in the perfect city Philadelphia that really has a stronghold on each of those four pieces of lifestyle, and we're here as a major brand in the city

to celebrate it. The Sixers formally rolled out There's seventy Sixers Crossover Capsule collection project this week, featuring exclusive streetwear brands like Eric Emmanuel, New Era, New York, Sunshine, Ever Styles,

Look Studios, and black Stock and Webber. Since the beginning of basketball, uniqueness has been part of what players wanted to display by what they have on and that's something that we're going to see celebrated through this a capsule that we have now, and then we'll tell more and more fashion stories because fashion is such an integral part of what the MBA players love to celebrate. If you're listening to this podcast before Saturday, August first, good Luck.

The merch drops exclusively on the website for Lapstone and Hammer, a premiere of Philadelphia lifestyle brand specializing in premium sportswear at ten am Eastern. As part of the seventy Sixer's Crossover Capsule, Alan Iverson and Matisse Thible helped model some of the apparel. Not only did Thible service the subject for a few pictures they dropped on social media. The talented rookie content machine also took a few photos himself

on an old fashioned film camera. The sixers original hope was to create a physical space in Center City, like a pop up to display the capsule in the spring, but as we know way too well, the world had different plans. When we were looking at building a capsule around fashion, it was going to be based on sort of a spring sort of collection. So that's not T shirts, that's not shorts, that's straight up sweaters, hoodies and stuff

that you would wear during the NBA season. With this pivot and COVID nineteen, we took a shift to celebrate playing basketball in the summer. We have a campaign here Summer seven six and it's really unique for us trying to celebrate the NBA in the summertime. So we view this as a return to play, So we're trying to bring some energy into seventy six ers basketball coming back. Proceeds from the seventy six Ers Crossover Capsule will benefit

the Urban Affairs Coalition. They are a group that we actually recently did a college and career readiness platform and program with with a lot of our staff members and coming out of that, it was important for us to continue that work because I think it was great for us to share some knowledge, but how can we share

some resources? So when we look at the crossover and we hope that this will be the baseline move forward if they're there's any sort of proceeds to be made while celebrating what makes Philadelphia great as it relates the lifestyle, we'll try to identify some of our partners, the UAC in this case, to be a beneficiary of the unveiling of the seventy Sixers Crossover fashion capsule, of course, comes

at a compelling time over a thousand miles away. The Sixers are one of twenty two teams bubbled inside the Walt Disney World Resort, hopeful to help the NBA pull off a restart that four months ago seemed like it would have been improbable. And for two different but very important reasons. What players are wearing is a topic of conversation. On one front, players can replace the names on the back of their jerseys with words and phrases that promotes

social justice. This is part of a joint effort between the league and the Players Association to recognize that black lives matter and rally around the fight against systemic racism. The other reason why what people are wearing is a story in the Magic Kingdom is because of the comprehensive safety measures being implemented to protect the NBA's Orlando campus

from the spread of COVID. Nineteen players, along with coaches and other staff, have been given titanium rings designed to detect subtle variances and body functioning such as heart rate, breathing, and temperatures that could be linked to the coronavirus. Disney World Magic wristbands have been distributed to limit wear and how many times you have to touch things with your hands like room keys and masks are obviously a must just about everywhere, with the exception of select Encourt personnel.

Given the circumstances surrounding the NBA's or Turned to play and the heat and humidity customary to Central Florida this time of year, the league's famed dress code is also getting a few tweaks. Instead of having to wear sports coats and suits on the sidelines, players and coaches can now go with short or long sleeve polos, and with this being in the middle of the summer, the fashioned vibes are naturally a little more laid back, because after all,

it's summer. Here's Alex Supers. I'm wondering how many full outfits the guys packed, how many like fits they packed, And with the media footprint scaled back inside the bubble compared to what it normally would be for the NBA player,

fashion content figures to be different too. I think the times that we might see people in the bubble dressed up is that if they're sitting out a game, or if they're they're injured or something like that, then you know, then they'll be wearing some outfits from when they're on the bench. Just with the limited media, they're limited press like, I also just think these guys might start on how the outfits. I don't know how much steady packed. I think it might be a lot of shorts, it might

be a lot of sweatpants, hoodies. It's gonna be interesting. I'm excited to see kind of how that plays out. Jamielisanti, I think the bubble is going to create a different wave of fashion them and we've typically seen. I think we're going to see a little more laid back, a little bit more of players using their bodies basically to send out messaging when in terms of T shirts or

you know, really anything. Because it's a strange season, I think they still have an opportunity to show their fashion, but at this point they're playing in a pandemic, So I think we're going to see a very laid back but also probably a very powerful season of NBA fashion in this bubble in Orlando. Yes, the rules these days may have changed, but one thing remains the same. NBA fashion is a compelling story worth file. That'll do it

for this episode of Here They Come. I want to thank you everyone involved in producing it, starting with Chris Unera, also Lauren Rosen, Maggie Zerbe, Alex Subers, and Abby Cook. Music for this episode of Here They Come is courtesy of Universal Production Music and the YouTube Audio Library. My name is Brian Seltzer. Thanks so much for listenings.