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"FacebookPinterest\n\nWe haven't had much reason so far this postseason to comment on Russell Westbrook, hero of this blog, largely because the Thunder are rolling and Westbrook is playing half-sane. However, this week found another way to tickle our outrageous bone, with a post-game look that best summed up as Sally Jesse Raphael-esque.\n\nWestbrook hasn't been the only player to take his fashion game off into the land of dark horizons. His pal James Harden accepted the Sixth Man of the Year award in a get-up that was part formal wear, part clown costume. After somehow redeeming his otherwise fatuous career by hitting key threes in the Clippers Comeback, Nick Young returned to form with a shirt that would have made Theo Huxtable proud, unbuttoned for good measure. And Rajon Rondo celebrated a loss to the Hawks in Round One with a jacket that looked like it was made from the skin of The Hamburglar himself.\n\nThese fashion \"don't\"s became immediate memes, imprinting some version of style and personality (things players express very little of directly) in the sphere of Twitter and Tumblr. Isn't it time that we entertain the possibility that these athletes are trolling, wearing strange shit on purpose to get attention and inject themselves into that night's web discussion? These aren't in the same category as, say, those days LeBron James says to his stylist \"I got this\" and presumably puts together the final look himself. We're talking about younger, more mischievous and interactive players, pushing things (or straight clowning) to get a reaction. They know exactly what they're doing, as well as what the brand value of it may be.\n\nIt's always tricky when fashion enters sports. For one, while athletes want to dress well, your average sports fan is stereotypically defined by not giving a crap about fashion. At the risk of stereotyping, your average sports writer isn't especially interested in it, either, and he probably isn't young, black, and wealthy. That means we've already got all sorts of cultural barriers at play here. Age, race, lifestyle, class ... take your pick. At best, the conversation is feckless; at worst, mildly uncomfortable. But I've come to the conclusion that Westbrook, Harden, Young, and maybe even Rondo (who ever knows with him) aren't trying to look fly and failing. It's not a \"hipster\" or \"blipster\" rampage; to paraphrase my wife, there is no known subculture on Earth that dresses like this. They're having fun with their look in a public sphere that relatively few people actually tune in for.\n\nIf it becomes a story, it's one among those of us who revel in players' cults of personality, watching them reconstitute themselves despite lackluster coverage of what athletes bring to the table as people. Harden takes it even further: he has spent his breakout season sporting a Rick Ross beard and a Mr. T mohawk, his grooming habits a topic of conversation even in the middle of telecasts; for a young, web-savvy team like the Thunder, visual branding and meme-ifying is at least as important as making best-dressed lists. When it carries over into the actual game, then we're entering forbidden Allen Iverson territory, just minus all the subtext of menace. For Harden, self-expression is getting us to pair that ridiculous grooming with his ultra-rational, increasingly deadly play.\n\nI don't want to say it's an act of rebellion or defiant agency, but fashion trolling certainly gives a whole new meaning to \"dressing up\" for the podium. The formal, even solemn, occasion to a chance to have some fun. In a playoffs as drab as this one, I find solace in the fact that someone is creating something worth talking about."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/how-to-make-a-statement-at-the-postgame-podium>