In the exclusive environment of skilled basketball, where the powerful and zeitgeist stretch their legs because the motion gallops, the cover T-shirt is becoming an increasingly common sight, seen on everyone from Teyana Taylor to Rich Paul. And yes, the players donned the duds.

Shirts are guided by business realities. But nobody could turn a soppy magazine run by a handful of dedicated, sarcastic people right into a cultural shorthand, a secret handshake for basketball fans. Allen Iverson on the cover was not the identical as AI on the cover in a retro Sixers jersey and impressive style.

covers all the time hit in a different way.

Even of their sorry state, long-established print magazines tend toward a dignity that has never been ascribed to “The Basketball Bible.” This can be a key reason why it continues to be so popular.

“I always considered myself your friends.” said basketball photographer Jon Lopezwho took photos for the cover of the magazine. “Someone from the neighborhood you grew up with who speaks your language and understands your game language, as opposed to this overachieving character you’ll never get to be around, and you’ll be lucky if I ever get a call from them.”

Long before eighth-graders had highlight tapes and ladies’s basketball hoops began gaining respectability, the publication didn’t stick with the NBA and men’s college hoops, staples of most major sports magazines. Attention was paid to playgrounds and the highschool. Chamique Holdsclaw, then a superstar on the University of Tennessee, was featured on the cover in October 1998. , Dawn Staley said, “truly understands the game and the culture of our game – not just Black culture.”

It began before you broke your back. Dennis Page, founder and publisher of , told journalist Alex Wong that he desired to do for athletes what the cover did for musicians.

When access to player photos was finally granted, he was joyful to relinquish control, said Russ Bengtson, the magazine’s editor-in-chief from 1999 to 2004.

“I think a big part of what makes us great and what makes us great is the trust in the players themselves,” he said. “They are the arbiters of what’s cool, not us. We are the delivery system for this. When I used to be an editor, I won’t think I knew what was cool any higher than Allen Iverson. This meant players didn’t must resort to stiff poses and ‘it’s over’ smiles during official NBA and team photo shoots. They could wear headbands or chains they even swap shirts with their teammates.

Lopez didn’t mention anything in regards to the cover, which does not feel corporate. Former editor-in-chief Tony Gervino told Wong that the turning point was: May 1995 cover with Latrell Sprewell and Tim Hardaway Golden State Warriors, neither of them were smiling.

“They were little-known players to the national audience and we wanted to plant our flag as an anti-establishment basketball magazine,” Gervino said. The goal, Bengtson added, was to make the players seem like rap stars.

“It was one of those things that you wanted, no matter what you achieved as a player… you wanted to have a cover,” said Shareef Abdur-Rahim, who granted his wish January 2000 issue. (He was also a part of that iconic 1996 rookie class.) It was greater than just being considered an excellent player. It instilled a certain street authority, “a certain kind of swagger, a coolness in you,” the 2002 All-Star said.

wasn’t your father’s basketball magazine. “My dad read,” Abdur-Rahim said. “I was reading.” Likewise his son. Abdur-Rahim, who serves as president of the G League, said his cover “makes me think I’m the older guy” amongst players.

Staley, who won three NCAA championships while coaching the University of South Carolina women’s basketball team, was the primary coach to land the job solo cover. “We have a pretty big ego,” said Staley, a Hall of Fame shortstop, “but you never think you’re big enough to be on the cover.”

Swagger only sells a certain variety of magazines. Even though, as Lopez said, it has adapted to the amusement park hall of cracked mirrors that’s the digital age – “They’re doing a great job of combining print with digital” – magazines must always reinvent themselves. So when Page was visited by Lynn Bloom, director of authentications and archives at Mitchell & Ness, he had an idea: “Don’t you think people would wear T-shirts with covers?”

The partnership made sense. “Their covers are spectacular,” Bloom wrote in an email. “They use the best photographers in the industry, ensuring that the photos are always striking and memorable.” And there may be synergy. “In many cases, the athletes on the cover are wearing jerseys that we now make, so it’s a natural fit.”

The jerseys allow people to “represent both their favorite players and them,” noted Adam Figman, CEO of . But it is a revenue stream and a cross-promotion bonanza. “It’s great that we have found a new way to grow our business,” Figman said in an email. “Media is a tough business and these T-shirt covers have helped us grow significantly.” He notes that the T-shirts have been illegal for years.

When Staley visited her hometown of Philadelphia, the neighborhood boys wore her T-shirt. “It’s such a cool, cultural element,” she said, “that connects or reconnects people who really know you.”

When Bengtson worked on the magazine, the cover was “a very ephemeral thing.” Yes, staff will sweat reading covers and other details, but “those things will disappear after a month or a month and a half.” Although he sells T-shirts featuring today’s stars, “the cover has become part of the player nostalgia” – Vince Carter, Shaquille O’Neal and so forth. Bengtson adds that lots of the photos became “the definitive images of these guys.”

The cover, Figman said, “remains one of the most coveted media properties in the sports and basketball world, and the cover T-shirts are another opportunity for us to show how moving the cover is.”

Does this translate into people buying the difficulty of the magazine?

“It’s possible, but probably not common,” Figman admits. “I feel it’s more likely that somebody will see another person wearing the shirt on the cover and either think, ‘I want that shirt,’ or ‘I hope my favorite player is on a future cover so I can get that shirt when it is going to occur.”

Although he recently celebrated his thirtieth birthday^vol anniversary and was honored by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, “is still a humble operation,” Bengtson said. “It’s still The Wizard of Oz. You pull away the screen of this extremely professional-looking, glossy magazine, and there’s still only a few people doing it.” Figman stated that the power to remain relevant on the cover is partly attributed to the staff’s “elite understanding of both who’s hot at the moment and who’s next.”

In the everlasting temporary industry, an influential magazine enjoys greater importance. There is one other profit for some former employees. “It’s cool to see that the story lives on in a different format now,” Bengtson said. “It’s cool to see.”