TJ Ford’s Infamous Rookie Card

[Ed Monix]

In a 2020 interview with James Posey on basketballnews.com, Ford gave the origin story of his viral photo:

"You have to do the rookie-transition program. I don't know how it was for you, Poz, but they had the gym set up at the Knicks' practice facility. It's where you did all the media and you did all the stuff for the video games and that's where they gave everybody their uniforms. So, when I got there, that's what the Bucks had sent me. I'm like, 'Yo… What? What you want me to do with this?' They were like, 'That's all we've got. It's either you wear them or you won't get these photos.' I'm like, 'Shoot, I wanna have my rookie card. I ain't gonna miss this.' So hey, we gotta do what we gotta do!”

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Source: CBS Sports

[CelticsPoetry]

Never knew that, pretty hilarious. Did they give him Yao's shorts?

[Who]

Haha, never knew this!

I always loved TJ Ford. He was such a fun player. I loved how he pushed the ball and got everyone involved in the game. Always a true winner. Mentality of a winner.

[Donoghus]

I remember my senior year in college when he led Texas to the Final Four. 

That was a fun year.  You had TJ with Texas, Melo with Syracuse, D-Wade with Marquette, and Hinrich/Collison at Kansas.

Ford is one of those "what ifs" with injuries.

[bdm860]

Obviously this was extreme even for the baggy shorts era, but until maybe last year, I hadn't realized how much the fashion has changed away from baggy shorts.

There was a reddit post a year or so ago in the college basketball subreddit, something like "this is what the uniforms looked like in 2010" and I was confused why it was highly upvoted post, as everything in the pic looked perfectly normal to me.  Go to the comments, and everyone's reacting to the shorts going to the middle of the knee.  Me not realizing that's not normal anymore (then a few months later this State Farm commercial came out)

It seemed like just a few years ago, people were making fun of Jaylen Brown because he was wearing short shorts.  Apparently he's a trendsetter.

Probably because so many guys wear the tights underneath now, it doesn't make it as obvious where the knee is and covers the legs, I never really noticed how much the times have changed.  Guys used to get fined for shorts being too long.  How far we've come.