When James Harden was trying on outfits in June, anticipating his nod as the NBA’s 2018 Most Valuable Player, stylist Kesha McLeod took him to notable British designer Neil Barrett. Harden is a vibrant personality, as imaginative with his wardrobe as he is off the dribble, says McLeod: “He’s very creative. He’s like all my clients molded into one.” So when Barrett handed him a navy blue suit, McLeod knew something was off. Harden is a man who exudes ingenuity with every outfit he puts together. A navy blue suit?

“I said, ‘He’s winning MVP. He’s not walking on stage doing absolutely nothing,’” she says. “I’m like, I can’t do that. It’s an injustice to James.”

So McLeod scrapped the suit and went with something totally out of the box.

The memorable result was the outfit Harden wore to the second annual NBA awards show, where many perceived his red carpet ensemble to resemble a cow.

“It’s not a cow. Those are flowers,” McLeod says, scrolling through the 20,000-plus photos on her iPhone to find pictures. It was originally a varsity-style jacket with a floral print that was transformed into a jacket with pants. “No one can critique or tell me anything bad about it because I know it was the right decision, because if he was in that navy blue suit, then it’s not enough.”

And determining enough is her job. Stylists are often perfectionists, every minute detail of an outfit coordinated from head to toe, wrist to neck. And those details are magnified when your clients have profiles as high as Harden or Andre Iguodala. So McLeod, who describes herself as a visual architect, and has been in the game for 12-plus years, is enjoying the fruits of her knowing exactly when enough is enough.

It doesn’t hurt that McLeod’s first internship was working for LeBron James’ stylist, who had her in the mix from Day 1. “I walked in and [my boss] was like, ‘You think you can get on a flight [to Cleveland] with me at 12:00?’” McLeod recalls. From there, the Queens, New York-native started taking on more clients, styling model and actress Veronica Webb, who McLeod says was the first big client of her career, as well as a superstar her boss didn’t have time to handle: Serena Williams.

That was 10 years ago, and McLeod has been Williams’ stylist ever since. The two became friends, not because McLeod sought her approval; she just wanted to do the best possible job for her client. “There was no, ‘Oh my God, it’s Serena Williams, the greatest athlete of all time,’ she says. “It wasn’t that. It was, ‘I don’t wanna let anybody down.’ So that’s how I approach every job.”

Of course, this was well before McLeod met James Harden, and well before NBA players, as a group, became symbols of style. There was a time when players wore baggy white tees and oversized jeans to the arena, which was what passed for sartorial trendsetting at the beginning of the aughts.

But at the start of the 2005-06 season, former NBA commissioner David Stern instituted a league-wide dress code. Half of the league’s wardrobe went out the window, and on came the boom of fashionable athletes, with stylists like McLeod as the beneficiaries.

And while the code has since relaxed under commissioner Adam Silver, the NBA’s stronghold on the fashion game has not, witnessed by the Instagram-friendly walk from the team bus to the locker room.

“That’s a designer’s showcase. That’s what people want to see,” McLeod says. “That’s where my work is displayed now. It’s the runway for athletes.”

Stylists rarely get to see clients in their outfits in real time; McLeod doesn’t travel with Harden or Serena everywhere, and many times, she’s giving them advice through FaceTime. If cameras didn’t flood the corridors of every NBA arena, McLeod — and stylists like her — might never get to see her clients in full dress.

“You see a snapshot of them getting off the bus, but you want that snapshot of them walking through the hallway,” she says. “You want the whole look. You want to see everything. You want to see them without headphones. You want to see them walking in, natural, you want to get video of that. And that became public because that’s what people wanted to see. And that’s a stylist’s biggest dream.”

Often times, it’s not what the player is wearing — it’s who’s wearing it and how. McLeod admits: Most stylists are shopping at the same stores for their clients, but nobody wants to look the same.

”We’re all doing the same things to stand out,” McLeod says. “So [peacocking is] still very prevalent within sports, but it’s more so the approach of who’s gonna wear it. James Harden and Jordan Clarkson wearing the same thing has a different effect than James and another great. And so that’s what it is. People want to stand out.”

“You want to see them walking in, natural, you want to get video of that. And that became public because that’s what people wanted to see. And that’s a stylist’s biggest dream.”

McLeod has worked with all types, from players with high style to those with no style. Surprisingly, she says, clients who identify as the latter are easiest to work with.

“A lot of people [have no style],” she says. “You coach them. You bring the best out of them.”

However, one player McLeod lauds as having incredible fashion sense is Harden’s teammate, bulldog defender P.J. Tucker. When dealing with a client like Tucker, McLeod helps take their fashion sense to a new level. Sure, Tucker knows the brand, but has he met the designer of what he’s wearing? McLeod bridges that gap. “I bring what they’re doing from here,” she says, gesturing toward her stomach, “to here,” she says, with her hand now near her chin. “It’s so much fun working with them.”

But what exactly is that work?

McLeod says: “It’s different with these superstars. They’re more independent, they know what they want, they know what they can get. Everybody knows or thinks they can do it, and you have to change your way of thinking … you have to approach everything rogue.”

McLeod is going into her second year styling Harden, and she doesn’t have to hold his hand while he decides on his outfit. McLeod creates a closet that becomes Harden’s personal playground, and the reigning league MVP takes it from there.

“I shop most of everything that’s there for him,” McLeod says, “but he loves to put things together. He has his own creative mind of how he likes things. He dresses for his own comfort level, as well. [We] discuss how things are going to be put together.

“He’s creating a brand. We trust each other when working with each other. It’s exciting.”

And ultimately, she decides when it’s enough.