YOU GOTTA LOVE THIS COUNTRY....

The NBA just reached its trade deadline yesterday. There were a flurry of trades with a number of significant names moving on to new teams. One of the biggest trades involved JASON "crybaby" KIDD, formerly of the New Jersey Nets, now of the Dallas Mavericks.

Because of the number of people involved in this particular trade and the amount of money involved, NBA rules dictate that the money amount involved in the total trade must equal on both sides of the deal. So in order to pull off this large trade, Dallas had to involve another player.... KEITH VAN HORN. Here's the hitch: VAN HORN hadn't played any kind of professional basketball since 2006. In essence, he was more (or less) retired from the game.

Here's the twist: Because VAN HORN never "officially" submitted his retirement papers, he was still officially on the Mavericks' roster. So someone from the team had to fly out to his home out in the woods of Utah and basically "convince" him to participate in the trade. What did he get to "agree" to the deal?

$4.3 million dollars.

Yes, I said it. $4.3 million dollars to basically jump on a plane to New Jersey, show up to a few practices for about a month, and basically chill out for the rest of the season. Where else can you get paid to basically work out a couple of days and chill out?

What a country we live in.



Giddy-up.