THE BLACK t-shirts Gold Coast players wore in Perth last weekend was the latest in a growing list of themes coach Damien Hardwick has used to galvanise and motivate his team.
Last season, Hardwick's first at Carrara, started with the Suns sporting 'We the North' t-shirts during the pre-season, replicating those worn by the 2019 NBA champion Toronto Raptors.
The easy through-line there was Toronto – the northern most team in the NBA – defied the odds to win that season's championship, and Hardwick was trying to replicate the same in his own northern market.
"Win, lose or draw, the opposition quickly realised that when they stepped foot into Canada, into Toronto, into the Raptors' stadium, they were playing the north," Hardwick said at the club's season launch that year.
While the Raptors' theme had only mixed success – the Suns won nine of 11 games at home, with only their horror away record costing them a shot at finals – Hardwick has gone back to the NBA well this season.
Which brings us back to the black t-shirts we saw on Sunday, a tribute to Detroit's 'Bad Boys' of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
In that era of the NBA, there was Magic Johnson's LA Lakers dominating and Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls on the way up. But the team that stood in their way was the rough and rugged Pistons of Detroit, a working class city with a working class team.
They were the complete opposite of the glitz and glamour of Magic and Michael; they played with a defensive edge (to put it politely), and with 12-time All Star Isiah Thomas, bully Bill Laimbeer and young Dennis Rodman, they became known as the 'Bad Boys'.
They won championships in 1989 and 1990, sandwiched between two titles to the Lakers and three to the Bulls.
Against West Coast last week, Hardwick wanted his Suns to play with that same edge and to be aggressive with their defence. After a record-breaking 87-point win, their season is off to a rollicking start.
When at Richmond, Hardwick was known for his gifts and motivation, and it's continued in his 18 months at Gold Coast, using a theme-a-week in-season.
He's widely read, thinks a lot about how he can motivate his players and looks for any edge or lever to pull from other sports around the world.
Whether those extra one-percenters will help the Suns replicate the success of the original Bad Boys of Detroit remains to be seen.
