100 Objects #14: Basketball Sleeve
99% Invisible - Roman Mars
This episode of 99% Invisible explores the cultural and historical significance of the basketball compression sleeve, tracing its rise from
Key takeaways
- The basketball sleeve is primarily a fashion statement rather than a functional medical device.
- The rise of the sleeve coincides with the NBA's transformation from a marginalized sport to a global entertainment brand.
Main topics
- History of the NBA
- Race and representation in sports
Notable quotes
"It wasn't just about the game. It was about who gets to look like what on the court."
"Michael Jordan is CEO Jordan."
Conclusion
The basketball sleeve is more than a piece of athletic gear—it's a symbol of resistance and cultural evolution. From its roots in the
Transcript preview
Speaker 4 (0:00) During the last NBA season, I was sitting in my living room watching a random game on a random night with my son and wife. We do this all the time. She's sitting there grading papers. My son is doing his homework. And at some point during the game, my wife looks up at the TV and asks, why are so many of the players wearing that sleeve on their arm? I told her that those are compression sleeves. They're like a medical thing. But then she's like, so all of them have medical issues, like elbow issues? And that simple question kind of stopped me in my tracks. Speaker 4 (0:37) I started counting and eight out of the 10 players in the court had them on. At this point, I'm like neurotically counting. Whoever subs in, whoever's sitting on the bench, how many of these players are wearing the sleeve? And everyone's got one on. Like what's going on with this? There is no way they all have elbow issues. This Speaker 3 (0:57) is Ramteen Erobloui. He's a producer and reporter. You might know him from the NPR show, ThruLine. Speaker 4 (1:03) Is it a blood flow thing? Is it something about their shooting range? Turns out the sleeve isn't there to do anything, really. It's just a look. The sleeve is fashion. And this fashion is also pretty new. If you go back and watch an NBA game from the 1990s, the era I grew up watching them, you won't see anyone with these sleeves on. Not one player. It seems like it came out of nowhere and now it's everywhere. So I looked into it and what I found was that the story of the sleeve is really the story of Allen Iverson, an underdog player who went from a prison cell to international fame in just a few years. Iverson had a huge impact on the sport. In sort of the same way Michael Jordan changed how the game is played, Iverson changed the culture around basketball. Speaker 4 (1:54) And through the story of him and his sleeve, you can see the whole history of basketball's relationship with race, with respectability politics, and who gets to look like what on the court. Speaker 3 (2:10) From 99 % Invisible and BBC Studios, this is a history of the United States in 100 Objects. I'm Roman Mars. Speaker 2 (2:22) Today, the basketball sleeve. Speaker 3 (2:24) From reporter Ramteen Arablui. Speaker 4 (2:49) This past season was a huge one for the NBA. And I'm not just saying that because I'm a Knicks fan. When I was sitting there watching all these players rocking their compression sleeves, so was everyone else. NBA viewership was at the highest it's been in decades. Nationally televised games had celebrities sitting courtside. The whole thing looked glamorous and big and more expensive than ever. But it wasn't always like this. Speaker 4 (3:17) The 1970s were the era of tiny shorts, the high socks and afros. The fashion was iconic. Speaker 5 (3:26) But not Speaker 4 (3:28) that many people were watching. Viewership numbers were really low. A lot of games weren't even shown live. They were taped and then aired later, sometimes after 11.30 p.m. Fistfights broke out on the court regularly, something you rarely see today. The game was just extremely physical. And there was this feeling, this impression many people had about the league, that the real problem with the NBA was that it was too Speaker 1 (3:54) Black. And not just meaning Black in demographics, but that they didn't play the right way. This Speaker 4 (4:02) is Teresa Runsteadler. She's a former NBA cheerleader turned historian. And she wrote a book about this era of the NBA called Black Ball. Speaker 1 (4:10) They were... playing streetball, that they were using drugs, that they were uncontrollable off the court, that they were lazy, that they weren't team players. The Speaker 4 (4:20) NBA had been segregated until 1951, and the 1970s marked the first time the league was majority black. The media often blamed the black players for the problems with the game, sometimes accusing them of rampant drug use. Speaker 1 (4:36) I did a quick search in one of the newspaper databases, typed in cocaine and NBA, and was shocked at the number of articles that immediately came up in the search. Speaker 4 (4:50) Now, there was a lot of drug use, especially cocaine, in a bunch of professional sports in the 1970s, no doubt. But many of these stories published about NBA players were based on rumors and innuendo. There was even an LA Times article that cited several anonymous sources in the NBA. Speaker 1 (5:08) Saying that 40 to 75 percent of basketball players in the NBA were using cocaine. Speaker 4 (5:16) But years later, many of those sources came out and said. Speaker 1 (5:20) Listen, we were misquoted in that article. We didn't even say that. Speaker 4 (5:26) But that narrative was already everywhere. The NBA was seen as dangerous and unwholesome. And then in 1977, something else happened, this time on the court, that would make things much worse. Speaker 4 (5:43) It was a regular season game between the L.A. Lakers and Houston Rockets. It was in the third quarter. A scuffle broke out between two players underneath the basket, and it continued on as other players tried to break it up. A Lakers player named Kermit Washington, who was involved in the initial altercation, was standing at half court when... Speaker 1 (6:03) He saw somebody coming out of the corner of his eye. It was Rudy Tomjanovich. Speaker 4 (6:09) Kermit saw Rudy Tomjanovich, a Rockets player, and thought he was coming after him. Speaker 1 (6:14) And he just punched and injured Rudy Tomjanovich very badly. Speaker 4 (6:25) One punch. Washington hit Tomjanovich directly in the face. He fell to the ground, writhing in pain. He was hospitalized and underwent several surgeries. He was left with permanent injuries and chronic pain. Kermit Washington's life would also change because the story became national news. Speaker 1 (6:48) Out of this came a huge outcry calling for his punishment. He became persona non grata. His whole life kind of went into a spiral after that point. Speaker 4 (7:01) Tomjanovich is white and Washington is black. So this tragic incident just further cemented the idea being portrayed in the media that basketball Speaker 1 (7:10) was becoming this space where you had. essentially big black men who were criminals, who were beating up white men on the court. And then that became the kind of narrative that mainstream Americans had for the NBA at that time. A Speaker 4 (7:33) narrative that fit perfectly into the larger issues happening in the U.S. in the late 1970s. Speaker 5 (7:43) There was terror in a lot of neighborhoods last night. Police have described the looters as animals. As Speaker 1 (7:48) the United States really entered into the worst of what they call the urban crisis. Speaker 5 (7:54) Like a swarm of locusts is the way one Harlem cop described the looters. Speaker 1 (7:59) Disinvestment from black neighborhoods. The South Bronx, 500 acres littered with devastated Speaker 4 (8:05) buildings and rubble. Speaker 1 (8:06) Increasing crime and white flight. to the suburbs. The Speaker 4 (8:11) Jews, Speaker 1 (8:11) the Speaker 4 (8:11) Irish, Speaker 5 (8:12) and the Italians began to move out. The South Bronx became a ghetto of the very poor, who were mainly Black and Puerto Rican. Speaker 1 (8:19) The NBA became a kind of microcosm of that larger social problem. Speaker 4 (8:26) The NBA was in the dumps, but the league's fortunes would quickly shift in 1980. Two generational players, one white and one Black, entered the league and took it by storm. Speaker 4 (8:44) Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Speaker 5 (8:53) They both Speaker 4 (8:54) stood 6'9", they were both incredibly skilled and fun to watch, and they were arch rivals. For the NBA, it was like a miracle from the basketball gods. Speaker 1 (9:05) So you have these two men of different races who are on different coasts, who are battling out. Speaker 4 (9:14) Let's start with Magic Johnson. He played for the Los Angeles Lakers. Speaker 1 (9:19) Who is this very effervescent personality. He Speaker 4 (9:23) has a huge smile and he's very charming. Speaker 1 (9:26) He's Showtime. He represents Hollywood. But Speaker 4 (9:29) he's also got the vibe of a friendly neighbor. He's Speaker 1 (9:32) just very ebullient, you know, fun to watch. Speaker 4 (9:36) Then there's Larry Bird. He's from rural Indiana, but plays for the Boston Celtics. Speaker 1 (9:42) Who kind of epitomizes... The Midwest, the kind of white Hoosier history of basketball. He Speaker 4 (9:50) was lovingly called the hick from French Lick. He rarely smiled. He talked a lot of trash on the court. And he came across as working class and serious, almost the complete opposite of Magic Johnson. Speaker 4 (10:05) And so it became magic vs. bird, black vs. white, west coast vs. east coast. The rivalry was the perfect sports storyline in the racially and class-stratified United States. And the NBA's new commissioner, Speaker 1 (10:19) David Stern, he Speaker 4 (10:21) saw this narrative as a path to reach his radical vision for the NBA. Speaker 1 (10:26) He begins to think