Today In "Holy Crap, This Guy Is Buying An NBA Team": Prokhorov Does Business With A Dictator

New Jersey legislator Bill Pascrell Jr. is calling for an inquiry that into the sale of the Nets because prospective owner Mikhail Prokhorov may or may not have done business with reigning Dictator of the Year, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. Of course.

According to the New York Post, Prokhorov's investment fund, Onexim (the money behind the Nets purchase), has a subsidiary that owns several companies in Mugabe's Zimbabwe, including a mining operation and big-game reserve. Well, if you'll all check your law books, under Executive Order 13288 of March 7, 2003, it is illegal for U.S. citizens, U.S. companies, or subsidiaries of U.S. companies to do business with Mugabe or any of his associates. Ergo, it's illegal to do business in Zimbabwe.

Rep. Pascrell may be onto something, or he may just be a Congressman from New Jersey that doesn't want whatever cash the Nets generate for the state going to Flatbush and Atlantic in Brooklyn. Whatever the case, I think we can now say that Mikhail Prokhorov is a phenomenon the likes of which the NBA has never seen. If he's not flying models into some remote alpine resort, he's canoodling with one of the worst people in the world. The guy makes Donald Sterling look like George Bailey.

Tycoon's tyrant ties threaten Nets deal [New York Post]