Perhaps the greatest thing about America is that a person’s earning potential is unlimited. If a man, woman or company wants to pay you a billion dollars a year to be a teacher or a garbage collector, you’re well within your rights to take that cash and there’s nothing anyone can do but hate. You can earn what they’ll pay you and you should always, always without exception, feel underpaid. That’s America! More importantly, that’s American.

Yet in some Soviet-leaning corner right there at 645 5th Avenue in Manhattan sits a little man who seems to have small regard for our American values or the religion of capitalism. This same little tyrant has implemented anti-American age restrictions for joining his workforce and implemented a non-work related suit-and-tie dress code on men that wear tank tops and shorts when they are working!

Our little comrade has justified placing “caps” on the earning potential of his employees by saying, “Now teams in San Antonio and Utah and Phoenix and Orlando have the ability to compete not based upon the size of their market.” He has justified his hare-brained quota making it mandatory that a player be 19 years old before he is allowed to play in the NBA by saying, “I don’t think that we should be setting an example for kids to be planning the rest of their lives around basketball.” And he has justified his suit-and-tie dress code for traveling NBA players by saying, “We're just changing the definition of the uniform that you wear when you are on NBA business.”

David Stern became NBA Commissioner on February 1, 1984, just a few months shy of his 42nd birthday. He was without question only the second most important rookie in the NBA that season. Stern taking credit for the phenomenon that became Michael Jordan and the resulting boon in the popularity of the NBA is akin to Hillary Clinton taking credit for the internet bubble that swelled the economy during her husband’s presidency.
Like the heavy-handed editor that takes a monkey wrench to a writer’s genius just to lay claim to some of the credit, Stern went to work. Now, some of his “edits” worked out just fine (expanding the league from 26 to 30 teams). Everything else was nuts.

And now very much like the fictional dictator that came to power in Woody Allen’s Bananas and declared that

• The official language of his Latin American nation would now be Swedish,
• Underwear would be worn on the outside and changed on the ½ hour (so that it could be checked),
• All children that were not 16 years old, were now 16 years old:

David Stern seems to be making up rules just to make them. The NBA’s salary cap, age restriction and dress code are not only irrational and stupid they are plain old un-American.

Dave, the New York Yankees and the Detroit Tigers have the two highest payrolls in Major League Baseball and they are currently both in 4th place in their respective divisions. Dave, four of the five members of the 2008 All-NBA first team (Kevin Garnett, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard) all skipped college and would have been ineligible to play had your age restrictions been in place during their rookie seasons. Dave, as commissioner of the NBA, you also oversee the sale of NBA merchandise. It would make more sense for you to require your players to be always outfitted in league apparel as opposed to suits. Seeing a guy with a neck tattoo and braids in a suit might bring to some minds the unfavorable connotation of a court appearance. And lastly Dave, why wouldn’t you, as the NBA commissioner, want kids planning their lives around basketball? Shouldn’t you want everyone planning his or her life around basketball?

The only place in the entire world where these sorts of warped, totalitarian socialistic policies still fly is Cuba, a place which, hey, Dave, coincidentally…