By Anne Bratskeir

When the NBA players lope into town for the All-Star game at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 15, fans will be engrossed in the action on the court. But for followers of fashion, it’s “the walk” — when the players in street clothes go from car or team bus to locker room and back again — that’s easily as captivating. And the players know it.

These fashion peacocks not only stand head and shoulders above the rest, they’re collectively the sports world’s best dressed.

Big man Stoudemire has an overt love affair with fashion. He’s sat front row at New York Fashion Week (next to Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, no less), collaborated on a collection with women’s designer Rachel Roy and calls himself “Mr. Fashion” on his official website.

“Amar’e is my style rebel,” stylist Rachel Johnson says of her 6-foot-11 client. “He is not afraid to try something, he goes against the grain and with what he feels.” He dresses, he says, for the occasion and has been spotted in everything from a varsity sweater to a swank custom Tom Ford suit accessorized with a bow tie, pocket square and thick-rimmed nerd glasses — a signature.

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