“That to me is like a no-brainer — it would be huge,” he said.

He explained: “A lot of the rap guys started wearing those clothes that seem to be four sizes too big for them. And they wear the hats without taking the tags off. They were laughing all the way to the bank. And I’m like: ‘They’re wearing these shorts that go down to their ankles. This is crazy that people think this makes sense. Let’s get some regular underwear, three pairs for 15 bucks — we’ll all go home happy.’”

Like many of McEnroe’s ideas, including his short-lived career as a TV game show host, this one did not work out. But he has multiple projects going on, some connected to tennis, some connected to the art gallery he owns in Downtown Manhattan, and some connected to other things.

We get on the topic of annoyance, a two-step process for McEnroe. First he becomes irritated at someone or something else, then he becomes irritated at himself.

Take what happens when fans accost him in public. “People come up in the middle of lunch and say, ‘I don’t want to bother you,’” he says. “If you didn’t want to bother me, why exactly are you bothering me?”

He goes on: “But then I think, ‘what an’” — here he calls himself a rude name — “you are. This person’s asking you for your autograph and you’re like, ‘How dare you?’ You don’t want to make them feel like a peon just because you’re having lunch.”

The McEnroe who appears in the Wimbledon broadcast center a few weeks later seems like a different person. Relaxed and funny, his pugnaciousness now coming across as playfulness and combative self-mockery, he is in his element here.

He has gone from being an enfant terrible to an éminence grise, beloved of even the staid BBC, which encourages him to be as colorful as possible. (He divides his time between commentating for the British broadcaster and for ESPN.)