Why don't more guys run in basketball shorts?

Dunno. Work great for me with boxers.

Because if we do it, then the women will soon follow and kill off yet another perk of being a male runner.

Same thing happened in basketball when the men started wearing the baggy shorts.

iverson wrote:

What's wrong with mesh basketball shorts for running? They look a lot better. I don't feel a difference unless you're doing a marathon on a warm day.

because you'd (or at least I'd) have to wear something else under them.

then that's two layers rubbing and swishing around. annoying as hell.

wearing long shorts that cover your knees is the stupidest fashion trend in decades. No doubt it is a conspiracy by either religious fundamentalists or gays, maybe even both. Showing your knee might stimulate a girl and offend her religion. Or gay fashion designers decided to push straight men into a niche of wearing ridiculous clothes, so the gays could have all the non-ridiculous options.

You walk around wearing 3/4 length pants, you look like a moron, I don't care who else does it.

Because that freshman from NJ got teased for wearing them in RWTB.

Well if we're going to go with your reasoning here, why do we wear running shoes? Dress shoes look a lot better.

god I hate those stupid basketball shorts on runners

They don't look better on runners or even basketball players. At some level they remind me of clown clothes. Less is better, certainly for running.

why don't more guys play basketball in running shorts?

OWNED

Because they're gai?

My impression is that African Americans favor longer shorts and pants much more than whites even when it is very hot. Not sure why but whatever.

I play basketball in basketball shorts, and I run in running shorts.

We don't train in basketball shorts because then we would have pale quads when race.

Basketball shorts are heavy, hot, and restricting. The only runners who wear them are wannabes.

Newsflash, Stretch: you're 5-8, you're fish-belly white, and your vertical is about eight inches (and that's the only thing)--a basketball player, you're not, and your reception by the ladies is not a basketball player's, either.

Don't demean yourself and your sport by wearing those basketball trousers. At least *pretend* that you're an athlete by wearing clothing appropriate to your sport.

i personally wear basketball shorts. they are airy and flowy. they are above my knee and not baggy either. works for me!

GOOD GAME wrote:

why don't more guys play basketball in running shorts?

OWNED

LOL! Actually, in pix of basketball players from around the 1970s or so, the shorts are pretty short--more like today's running shorts.

Ran a 4kquick endurance recently, in cut-off jeans. Was actually pretty comfy. Everyone has a pair that has busted knees or zipper. Cut it, pin it, race it.

Part One of Two

Those knee length shorts, those tubular breeches are not basketball shorts.

These are basketball shorts

http://sports.history.msu.edu/record.php?record=1-4-A9

Basketball short shorts in the 1930s

http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=4272

Basketball short shorts in the 1950s

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67827566@N00/6085891954/

Manute Bol & Washington Bullets vs Chicago Bulls 1986

http://theshoegame.com/articles/chicago-vs-boston-air-jordan-1-60-pack.html

April 20, 1986 the Chicago Bulls played the Boston Celtics

http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images_root/slides/photos/000/883/592/359780_display_image.jpg?1303518679

mid eighties scrunch socks, groin length shorts on basket ball player

I cant watch basketball without laughing at those ugly unathletic shorts. The flapping sound of the fabric is remarkable, Im surprised they dont trip over themselves. Doesnt all that loose cloth impede playing ability?

Compare the groin length or even thigh length short photos above, and the knee length bball shorts of today.

Those knee length loose shorts make players look scruffy, and make the body look unbalanced.

Why would anyone want to run in knee length shorts, with that loose fabric flapping around?

However as we have seen, cant predict the future, in another twenty yrs men couuld be running or playing basketball nude, in loin cloth, or in bloody bellbottom trousers lololol

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http://www.olympic.org/antwerp-1920-summer-olympics

Antwerp 1920 Olympics. Last long shorts Olympics for runners

http://www.olympic.org/paris-1924-summer-olympics

Paris 1924 Olympics. First Olympics where shorts start to rise for runners

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5zTzMciyxw&feature=related

Athletic shorts are actually longer now than they were in Seb Coe's time [eighties]

Male shorts had been rising from the 1920s with male athletic running shorts leading the way, as society had slowly started rejecting Victorian values eg. modesty over practicality. I remember in the eighties watching Magnum PI, Higgins a WW2 vet wore kneelength bermuda shorts. That he wore such shorts highlighted in my mind that he was a man of the past, a man out of time, old fashioned, of the old previous prudish order eg of no sex before marriage, prudery, of modesty in clothing.

To show your legs was no different than showing the biceps of your arms. They were simply a visceral demonstration of masculine power. Like today, where whoever has the largest biceps is subconsciously considered the hardest, the toughest, and the most masculine. In the 80s whoever had the largest thighs was considered the hardest, the toughest, and the most masculine. Football [soccer] shows and fans would often associate and identify the hardest, the toughest, the most masculine football player with those who had 'thunder thighs or 'thighs like tree trunks'. Men would shorten the leglength to reveal more thigh.

At the time the wave of the future, the direction of the future lay in even tighter clothing [possibly even just loincloth] as athletes again led the way in the late 1980s, by wearing skintight lycra for running. I remember thinking that footie players would soon start wearing lycra shorts of some type. What noone would have predicted is that male shorts and especially shorts in many sports, would drop to DROP TO THE KNEES. Thankfully the Rugbys and Aussie Rules footie resisted. Knee length shorts must impede perfomance, it is one of the reasons sporting shorts rose in the first place. Ive seen Novak Djokovic almost injure himself because the fabric violently restrained his leg splits, when he has tried to return a ball. If he had been wearing shorts shorts like this, he would have risked less injury.

http://i.cnn.net/si/si_online/covers/images/1983/0711_large.jpg

[John McEnroe 1983]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5zTzMciyxw&feature=related

Athletic shorts are actually longer now than they were in Seb Coe's time [eighties]

For those under 35, Male short lengths dropped to the knees again at the end of the eighties, due to a change in hiphop clothing fashion. Before the change hiphop was like other clothes tight eg.look at mid eighties breakdancers and gangstas in their tight tracksuits.Tight tailored clothing was considered futuristic, modern, unprudish. In the UK[Im a Brit] in the mid eighties baggy clothes meant you were dirt poor, wore handmedowns. I always took the mideighties Madness song 'baggy trousers' to be mocking baggy clothes.

Then BOOOM, in the late eighties all of sudden in music videos [no internet then, pop music shows were the primary means of youth clothing dissemination ] hiphop artists like Del La Soul were wearing real baggy clothes. The looseness of the Hip hop clothing greatly impacted on the clothing style of the nascent Rave scene here in the uk and europe, and was in keeping with the 'Devotion triballike dance-worship of Nature, the Sun and the First Cause' vibe. Plus raves were damn hot - so loose clothing helped. There was also the loose clothing of the Madchester guitar scene with its flares. I suspect that the loose hiphop clothing style also influenced the grunge-rock loose clothing style too, as baggy was in.

Part Two of Two

In the 1988-89 season, It seems that the Bulls shorts, were the first elite-level sport-shorts in world sports to increase in length. However i dont believe basketball started the trend for longer shorts globally. Again no internet, and few tv shows were broadcast outside their national origin - i never saw an NBA game on tv here in the UK

1989-90 thigh length bulls shorts v groin length pistons shorts

http://www.headlinesports.net/catalog/110689nml.jpg

http://www.headlinesports.net/servlet/the-3956/1989-Michael-Jordan-

(Chicago/Detail

1991 piston shorts now at midthigh length too. booooooooo

http://thebergmountain.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/ignoring-the-lockout-ii-most-dominate-nba-playoff-teams-of-all-time-part-2/

The prevailing fashion amongst us youngsters at the time, for baggy clothing affected the global game - football

THis, I believe is what really starts the trend for longer shorts globally in many sports.

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/79023273/Bob-Thomas-Sports-Photography

Football. 1991 FA Cup Final. Wembley. 18th May, 1991. Tottenham Hotspur 2 v Nottingham Forest 1.

Nottingham Forest in the normal ie short shorts V Tottenham Hotspur in the bizarre antisport long shorts

I remember thinking 'what the hell'. It was as strange as if they decided to wear victorian hobnail boots to play football again. I wasn’t alone. Ive listened to profootballers from that era recalling their reaction to the long shorts was one of astonishment also:

'Incidentally, the long shorts worn by Spurs in this match met with considerable derision but quickly caught on and became universal. '

http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/English_Football_League/FA_Cup_Finals/1990-1999.html

‘Shorts became shorter than ever during the 1970s and 80s,[54] and often included the player's number on the front.[69] In the 1991 FA Cup Final Tottenham Hotspur's (spurs)players lined up in long baggy shorts. At the time the new look was derided, but within a short period of time clubs both in Britain and elsewhere had adopted the longer shorts.’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_

(association_football)#cite_note-Laws-0

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My generation, the rave/house generation contemporaneous with your USA gen-X, was the first to stop wearing short shorts. It was simply a fashion change, nothing to do with being female wear or effeminate, as it had always been masculine wear.

What is an interesting aside, is how quickly clothes can go from being perceived as masculine or at least unisex, to be seen as feminine.

It took just 10 yrs for men to stop wearing short shorts which men created for their bodies, and women to continue wearing them [ young women midnineties in the UK wore hot pants channelling seventies fashion. I also remember a grunge female friend wearing groinlength shorts and black n purple horizontal stripped tights] for men and women to see particularly nonsporting short shorts as 'female wear'.

Ive always been curious what happens in the mid to late eighties that causes the change from tight clothing like the tracksuits to very baggy clothing, in USA hiphop fashion?