How Serge Ibaka, P.J. Tucker, Chris Paul, and Other NBA Stars Get Game-Ready With Fashion

With bold taste, stylists on demand, and millions watching their now infamous tunnel walks, NBA players are serving style for sore eyes.

What does DeIon Sanders say?” Chris Paul asks, somewhat rhetorically. “When you look good you feel good? When you feel good you play good? For me, fashion is a representation of who I am. It makes me feel good to wear nice clothes.” The Phoenix Suns point guard is on the phone from his home in Arizona, checking off a list of his favorite labels: Fear of God, Paul Smith, and the Swag Shop merch by his good friend, rapper turned barber shop owner Killer Mike. “A lot of the stuff that I wear is cozy—sweatsuits and stuff like that,” he says, adding that some aspects of his style, like his signature slouch socks, were influenced by what was popular when he was growing up in North Carolina. After a trade last November that sent him from the Oklahoma City Thunder to Phoenix, he’s on the fifth team of his career and playing his 16th season. Throughout most of that time, though, he’s been working with stylist Courtney Mays.

The two met when Mays was living in New York, assisting stylist Rachel Johnson, and Paul was playing for the New Orleans Hornets. (Johnson, who has worked with Paul, LeBron James, Amar’e Stoudemire, and numerous other athletes, is widely credited with bridging the gap between luxury fashion and sports.) After Paul was traded to the Los Angeles Clippers in 2011, Mays moved to L.A. to work with him full-time.

During the season, Pierno says, the account’s inbox is flooded with players sending photos of themselves. Some of them have his personal number and text him. “I’ve had dudes send me pictures and I’ve looked at the time and been like, ‘It’s halftime of your game—you’re not even allowed to be on your phone now.’ ” The day I spoke to Tatum, a photo of him arriving at TD Garden was posted to the account, garnering 22,800 likes and counting. He was dressed in a then unreleased pair of Lost Daze cargo pants, a Dream On hoodie, and a Margiela puffy coat—a look styled by Michel.

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