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"FacebookPinterest\n\nOn draft night, the Brooklyn Nets acquired Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Jason Terry in a trade with the Boston Celtics, and they gave up very little in the way of tangible player assets. For their troubles, Brooklyn now likely boasts the strongest starting five in the league.\n\nThey also willfully took on nearly $13 million dollars in luxury tax. That bill puts them third in the NBA, behind the Lakers\u2014a team destined to make a deal this offseason\u2014and the Heat, who just won a title and get to have LeBron James run around in their uniform. The Knicks, perennially troubled by the luxury tax, are at $9 million. The Nets, and their owner Mikhail Prokhorov, didn't step lightly into this one. They strode proudly. \n\nBy saying a polite \"fuck you\" to the luxury tax, Mikhail Prokhorov has created a haven for player roster fantasies (or fantasy player rosters). He's fulfilled every mad Russian billionaire joke that dogged him when he first purchased the Nets and, at the same time, allowed the front office to recede like never before. \n\nGarnett and Pierce, for the second time, are at the heart of one of these mercenary formations. Garnett has language in his contract that allows him to be picky about trades; Pierce was a career Celtic who couldn't have been pawned off on just any team. You can rest assured that the player involvement in this deal went beyond mere consent. And yet never has an organization\u2014or more precisely, an owner\u2014played such a decisive role in this sort of arrangement. \n\nProkhorov is a thousand times more radical than Miami's Big Three could ever be. He has the means to challenge the system on a scale that no individual player, or group of players, could ever dream of. Unless, of course, they agreed to play for no salary at all, which is never going to happen. In the grand scheme of things, though, it's not that far from an owner simply refusing to care about money. \n\nIt's like one of those full-stop libertarians who wakes up one day and realizes he's joined the anarchists. The most powerful owner in the NBA is the one who can break ranks with his money-grubbing peers, defy the outgoing commissioner, and open up his team for stars in search of a ring. \n\nThe NBA is a business. Owners, while they may be vastly rich men in charge of huge and valuable operations, need to squeeze every last dollar they can out of their investment. Hence last year's lockout, when murky figures and projections were employed to once again drive down the players' earnings. \n\nWhile NBA franchises continue to skyrocket in value, this sort of fiddling also protects them against year-to-year fluctuations in, say, peanut sales\u2014the kind of everyday decision that can be decided by that day's market uncertainty. It was also supposed to ensure that the Miami Heat never happen again, at least not on that grand a scale, with that tremendous a score by one single team. This strategy would ensure that talent/competition keep from getting too lopsided or consolidated. But it would also make sure that the owners, not the players, were the ones running the show. \n\nTo some degree, it worked. The Lakers shocked the world this past summer by taking on Dwight Howard and Steve Nash. There was also an understanding that, unless they were willing to pay huge amounts of luxury tax, this team wouldn't last. Certainly, this year's disastrous run helped make that decision easier; no one will be surprised when Howard heads to Houston next month. \n\nAll NBA owners make their money elsewhere and continue to do so. But Prok alone is willing to treat his team like a vanity project, at least for now. \n\nReally, it's not that bad a business decision, if we look past the obvious problem of losing millions upon millions of dollars. The league is both top-heavy and weak at the moment. Miami's not as indestructible as they ought to be, especially with Wade's effectiveness in question. The Spurs aren't getting any younger. Oklahoma City has yet to prove that, minus James Harden, they can go deep in the playoffs. Outside of that, who's gunning for that title next year? An emboldened Pacers or Grizzlies? A refocused Clippers? \n\nThe Nets, despite Pierce and KG's advanced age, automatically insert themselves into the conversation. A new franchise, one forever competing with the Knicks for attention, could do far worse in its second season. From a brand standpoint, contending in 2013-14 is exactly what the Nets need. Apparently, Prokhorov believes there is no price too high.\n\nMake no mistake, Prok is playing hardball. He has, based on the way the owners worked during the last round of CBA negotiations, turned his back on the cartel. This writer is hesitant to speculate as to what that means for him or his team. But that could be a good thing. Prokohorov won't need a lockout to make sure nobody else competes with him, assuming the Nets do in fact get much, much better. Short-term, it's a smart move. Long-term, it positions Prok as an owner with an unmistakable advantage over his peers. Peers, lest we forget, he is competing against for wins, television slots, apparel sales, and general notoriety. \n\nThat's assuming, though, that Prokhorov doesn't inspire some other daring owner to throw caution to the wind or completely shift the paradigm of NBA ownership. If reckless spending becomes the standard, then who owns a team or why could change radically, too. If a starting five of All-Star-ish players becomes the gold standard and the league can't do a thing about it, at what point do other owners start throwing their hands up and selling to even richer people, perhaps international robber barons like Prokhorov? \n\nOr maybe Prokhorov, for all the warranted hyperbole, is a correction against last summer's lockout greed. Consider it market forces or divine justice. He's a reminder that before the Heat, Big Three teams were the foundation of a strong stable league, and for the league to be healthy, owners have to be able to spend. It's a shame that they don't recognize this and the league encourages this kind of behavior. That's why Prokhorov is as reassuring as he is terrifying. Sometimes it takes a madman to make us all sane again. \n\n Bethlehem Shoals is a writer living in Portland, OR. He is the co-author of two books about basketball. Follow him on Twitter at @freedarko."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/how-mikhail-prokhorov-blew-up-the-nba>