Fortunately for our sanity and the enduring hope that the world offers better things to come, even the most irritating fashions and fads – selfie-sticks, anyone? – eventually fade away.
So it is that basketball shorts no longer resemble culottes, hiding athletes’ lower bodies in oddly Victorian modesty. Without fanfare, after more than two decades, hems are creeping upward, kneecaps reappearing as though the clouds have parted. That assumes another fashion trend, wearing white compression pants, does not obscure the view. The rise in shorts is incidentally in keeping with Roy Williams’ taste; the North Carolina coach mandates trimmer shorts because players attempting between-the-legs dribbles have been known to lose the ball within voluminous folds of cloth.