Ozzie und Daniel Silna waren Besitzer eines erfolglosen Teams einer längst untergegangenen Liga. Dann kamen sie auf den cleversten Vertrag der amerikanischen Sporthistorie. Nun will die NBA sie aus dem Deal herauskaufen.

Diamante said he stopped cutting his hair in 1988, when he was a senior in high school. “There was a change in my life, and it felt right, and I just stopped cutting it,” he said, the dreadlocks swept behind him as he smoked. (He ties them up for announcing events.) “Will I cut it tomorrow? Maybe. Will I cut it later today? Maybe. Probably not. I try to go day by day and not to future-trip too much. It’s not that I don’t look to the future, but I really like to live in the moment and be present in the moment.”

Bear with me now. The RDA dates back to 1959, and was maybe Bill Veeck's biggest hustle in a long lifetime of hustles. Veeck argued to the IRS that professional athletes, once they've been paid for, "waste away" like livestock. Therefore a sports team's roster, like a farmer's cattle or an office copy machine or a new Volvo, is a depreciable asset.The underlying logic is specious at best. As Fort points out, a team's roster at any given moment isn't actually depreciating. While some players are fading with age, others are developing and improving. But the Nets don't have to pay more taxes when a player becomes more valuable. And in any case, the cost of depreciation is borne by the athletes themselves, when they pass their primes and lose their personal earning power.