The Real NBA Lottery Winners

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I love trades in the NBA for one reason: The random guy.

As most NBA fans know, when players are traded, the salaries of the players traded have to match up. For the big trades, that sometimes means a guy who is not playing gets traded, gets paid by his new team -- and then is cut.

I explained the phenomenon in a story I wrote for ESPN.com 3 1/2 years ago when I noticed that a player named Amal McCaskill was always being traded, signed and cut.

With the Nets-Mavericks trade today, Keith Van Horn appears to be the latest recipient of this book balancing. Van Horn hadn't played in a year and a half, but the Mavericks still owned his rights.

So Van Horn will get paid about $4 million to try to come back with the Nets. And even though he likely won't be on the roster for more than a month, Van Horn can still walk away with a cool $4 million.

Questions? Comments? SportsBiz@cnbc.com