NEW YORK.  NBA officials are expressing concern over a new threat to player safety that has emerged in the past few days-crop circles in "corn rows", the hair style sported by many of the game's premier players.

Attempt at alien communication?

"We're taking this very seriously" said NBA Director of Security Chip Ahlberg. "We're not so great on players going into the stands and beating fans up, so it's good to have something else to focus on."

"You want an autograph?  I'll give you a freaking autograph!"

Crop circles are geometrical patterns that have appeared in cultivated fields around the world.  While individuals have come forward and admitted to perpetrating a hoax with the formations, groups with a looser grasp on reality have nonetheless claimed that the circles are the work of extraterrestrials.

The website http://www.cropcircles.net/ asserts that crop circles are evidence that aliens want inhabitants of the planet Earth to form a single, one-world religion. "They think we spend too much money on bar mitzvahs and Christmas decorations," said the site's webmaster, Arnold Stang. "They also pick up radio signals of 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer', and it drives them nuts."

"Stop the Christmas music, or we will destroy your planet!"

Rookie Walter Sharpe of the Detroit Pistons was the first to notice a crop circle pattern in the cornrows of his teammate Allen Iverson during a game last week. "I said 'Allen, what's up with the Navajo sun symbol in your braids, man?' He got all bent out of shape and didn't pass me the ball for a week-not even in layup drills."

"Rook, that was one stupid question."

The last attempt by aliens to interfere with professional basketball came in 1996, when a group known as the Nerdlucks stole the talent of Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Muggsy Bogues, Larry Johnson and Shawn Bradley in the movie "Space Jam."

"Psst-who invited Bradley?"

"We were profoundly shaken by that experience," said NBA Commissioner David Stern. "We're still asking ourselves-why would anyone want to steal Shawn Bradley's game?"