I keep thinking about the tunnel walk and how strange a beast it is. With all the cameras and coverage dedicated to NBA fashion, it’s essentially a red carpet you have to hit multiple times a week for at least six months, making even the longest movie press tour feel brief by comparison.

That’s a huge thing. I like to point that out a lot, too. I have friends who are actors, and a prime example is during award season. You got the Oscars, the Golden Globes, and so on. I had a friend who just went on a crazy run, going from premiere to premiere, red carpet to red carpet, and she was just getting looks off. And then award season is over, and it all stops.

For us basketball players, we have to get dressed 82 times. I think that’s where we show our versatility and personality as athletes, especially as basketball players. Also, it’s okay to wear clothes more than once, like a regular human being. A lot of times, when you’re on these press runs, you could really just pull clothes for an entire month or two and not pay for anything, but you can’t really do that for [the NBA season].

You have to have clothes in your closet, and it has to be less stressful, too. I would say that, as basketball players, our fashion is kind of a job now. I think there are some of us who have made it that way. But you can’t be stressed [about it], because our main job is basketball, and that’s the most important thing. You really can’t just be stressing over, “Oh, crap. It’s 30 games in, and I don’t have any more clothes. Now I have to get more clothes.” You need to be thinking about basketball.

It’s just being myself and being authentic with it. That’s the most important thing and the reason why. It was my artistic way of showing my fashion in between games and tunnels, and it just took a different turn, where I don’t really care as much. I don’t really care about having the top fit of the week or putting that energy into it anymore. And I think that reset was to just become a little bit more grounded in my habits around fashion as a whole. I have pieces that I’ve been wearing, truly, for literally the past two years now. And you would never really know, because they’re just staple pieces: a single jacket may go with 15 different pants, or a single pair of pants may go with five different jackets.

When I’m shopping, I just know what I need or what I could add. So I’m not necessarily getting three or four jean jackets in the year. I may just have one really nice one. And if I think a bandana or a scarf would really match a brown jacket that I have, or just the last couple of brown pieces I have, then I would just buy that bandana because I know I can wear it with five different things. I’m really looking at things as the whole, overarching look, just because adding one piece changes the whole conversation of your outfit.