The secret has been closely held for many years, but the truth is finally out. David Stern's favorite NBA team is the Blazers.

In a move that makes you wonder just how desperate he's getting to retain the league's high-end fan base, the commissioner recently announced he will impose a "dress code'' on the league's players this season. This was confusing to me because I thought they already had a dress code. When they go to work they all wear shorts with matching tank tops, sneakers with high socks and ear rings the size of golf balls. That is the NBA's version of "business attire,'' if you ask me.

The court, after all, is an NBA player's workplace. They cannot just show up there like you and I do on a Saturday morning with the only clean T-shirt he has left, swim trunks and mismatched socks stuffed inside a long-ago diminished pair of Air Jordans. They've got to wear the UNIFORM, man. Just like corporate attorneys, and MBAs and kids at Burger King. You go to work you wear what they tell you. You wear the uniform of your profession.

But nobody tells you what to wear on the way to work, do they?

But this week a very nervous David Stern said he would require all NBA players to wear "business casual'' attire this year to team functions, arrivals and departures, on flights and at public appearances. Well, "business casual'' depends on what business you're in.

If you drive a cement truck it means steel-toed boots, a flannel shirt and jeans. If you drive a limo, it's a black suit and silly looking hat. If you're in the back of the limo it could be a $1,500 suit, unless you're part of a rap group, in which case "business casual'' is not unlike what Allen Iverson wears to NBA arenas.

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Of course, Stern's idea of business casual is more traditional.

Blazers, collared shirts, suits and NO JEANS. No jeans? The things cost about $150 a pair now don't they? One wonders if Stern's dress code will also exclude the $100 sneakers that fuel so much of his league with their advertising dollars?

Not surprisingly, many players are already up in arms. Iverson says it's "a bad message to kids'' although it's difficult to understand where that's coming from. When did wearing a sportcoat become a bad message to kids? It is, however, a bad message about the erosion of personal freedom in the pursuit of corporate dollars.

Stern was quoted in the Boston Globe as claiming the dress code is "a small thing that contributes to a sense of professionalism. It's what the job entails.''

Actually, no, it isn't.

What the job entails is draining jump shots, or cleaning the glass, or rejecting an Iverson drive in the paint. The job entails playing basketball at a highly proficient level while wearing the uniform dress code of the league — which is to say the uniform of your team. After that, who cares what a guy wears while walking out to his Bentley?

What Stern is trying to do, it seems, is bring his product more in line with its customers, meaning the corporate slugs who can afford NBA tickets on a regular basis.

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