I think the new NBA dress code is pretty ridiculous. It’s only intent is to get rid of the hip-hop aura surrounding the game and make the players dress more like the fans dropping a couple-hundred bucks to go see a game. While the league has every right to enforce a dress code, owners should make a greater effort to communicate with the players intead of simply handing down decrees from on high.

In USA Today, Golden State Guard Jason Richardson made a point that could be directed at the guys who came up with the dress code: “You still wear a suit, you still could be a crook,” Richardson said in Oakland. “You see all what happened with Enron and Martha Stewart. Just because you dress a certain way doesn’t mean you’re that way.”

Slate.com has a few suggestions as to how players can obey the dress code, but still express themselves:

Embrace the suit: This is not 1957. Today, a suit can mean a lot of things. Commissioner Stern of all people should know that. He stands at the podium every draft day and watches the basketball youth take the stage wearing mustard-colored blazers and fire-engine-red waistcoats. And those aren’t even the European players. Put it this way: We’ve seen Cedric the Entertainer wear a suit without sleeves before. There’s room for creativity here.

Use your heads: Headgear not allowed? Bring back the visor. While a visor does boast a brim, we believe that it is technically not a hat as it does not satisfy the main hat qualification: covering your head. In reality, it is more akin to the headband. Hell, accountants wear visors, and it does not get more straight-laced than that.

Accessorize: No medallions, no problem. You need your bling, put it on an earring. Want us to rhyme one more time? Fine. If it’s telling time, where’s the crime? Bring back the pocket watch and chain. Get your medallion fix while letting everybody know “what time it is.”

Make your injury work for you: Riding the pine with a torn ACL? Walk that one off with a diamond-encrusted cane. We’re talking about your health here. You’d be surprised what an emerald-studded walking cast can do for a nasty case of plantar fasciitis.

Give yourself props: Bump that folding chair up a notch. Who says you can’t sit on a throne and go from a Sacramento King to the king of Sacramento? And get yourself a pair of pumas. We’re not talkin’ sneakers here—those are on the don’t list. After a tough loss, stroll to the press conference while flanked by two adult female pumas. Then we’ll see if that beat writer chastises you about the fade away three-pointer you took in overtime.

Slate.com article: Fashion Victims - How NBA players can get around the league’s awful new dress code.

Mark Cuban’s take on the dress code