On Monday we learned basketball superstar JAMES HARDEN, who has three years left on his contract with the HOUSTON ROCKETS, has told the team he'd rather not. He wants to play for the BROOKLYN NETS instead, and he's asked the Rockets to make it happen, and to put their counteroffer of more than $50 million a year back in their pocket. The MILWAUKEE BUCKS, meanwhile, are about to trade away their future for one player who might make their own superstar, GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO, happy today, in the hope he won't walk away when his contract expires next summer. Basketball's superstars have leverage and they're going to use it. Why wouldn't they? No one's coming to the TOYOTA CENTER in Houston or the FISERV FORUM in Milwaukee to watch the owners own or the coaches coach. They're coming to watch (apologies in advance for this) the players play, play, play. So, anyway, about SCOOTER and TAYLOR. Because we also learned on Monday that Scooter Braun has sold Taylor Swift's masters less than a year and a half after buying them, and that she once again is not impressed. Two other things we might have learned: Scooter, who reportedly paid a little over $300 million for an entire label, including those masters, and who sold just the masters for, reportedly, a little over $300 million, may have got one hell of a deal a year ago, his public battle with Swift and her promise to make life miserable for him notwithstanding. And/or we might now know that the label, BIG MACHINE, was all but worthless without Taylor and its other artists, but mostly without Taylor. This is something artists have been trying to explain for years: They don't only bring the noise; they bring the value. It doesn't take much back-of-the-envelope math to conclude that Big Machine's worth to buyers wasn't in its brand or its A&R department or the occupants of its C-suite. Some $300-million-plus of that $300-million-plus value apparently belonged to a single artist's master recordings. This, again, is what you might call leverage. (It's also kind of amazing.) Shortly after Variety's SHIRLEY HALPERIN broke the news of the purchase by an unnamed private equity company, Swift took to Twitter to name the buyer—SHAMROCK CAPITAL—and provide some details that had yet to be reported, the bottom line of which is she appears to be much more fond of the people at Shamrock Capital than she is of Braun but she isn't going to cooperate with them either because, according to her, the deal allows Braun to keep profiting off her recordings. She's going to continue with her project, which she says she's already started, of rerecording her Big Machine albums, in the hope fans will stream, and music supervisors will license, the versions she owns instead of the versions that would funnel money elsewhere. Some people think this is petty of her. She certainly has a personal score to settle. But it's her music and she isn't deceiving anyone. Shamrock Capital knows exactly what it's getting and what it isn't getting, and it spoke highly of Swift in a public statement to the New York Times and other outlets: "We made this investment because we believe in the immense value and opportunity that comes with her work. We fully respect and support her decision and, while we hoped to formally partner, we also knew this was a possible outcome that we considered." It's unclear where exactly Shamrock sees the value in the catalog of an artist intent on playing the role of hostile witness, but it clearly does see value. And in a friendly note to the investors that she shared in her tweet, Swift expressed eagerness to work with them "if your firm is ever completely independent from Scooter Braun and his associates." I have a feeling that sentence will be worth remembering. Braun and his partners, for their part, appear to be getting their entire investment back while still owning a label whose catalog includes albums—though not necessarily the most commercially valuable ones—by FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE, LADY A and TIM MCGRAW. He was reluctant to talk publicly after last year's transaction and he isn't talking this week, so far, either. But there may be no actual losers here. And, in the sense of controlling both her own work and the public conversation thereof, one winner... Another winner (or three): LIL NAS X performed four virtual shows over the weekend in the video game ROBLOX in which he debuted a new Christmas song and earned 33 million views. That's good news for Roblox, proving it can compete with FORTNITE as a major music destination; for the music business, which can use every destination it can find right now; and, last but not least, for Lil Nas X, who, nearly two years after he released the wonder that is "OLD TOWN ROAD," has 33 million arguments that he might not be the one-hit wonder you thought he was... RIP ALEXANDER VEDERNIKOV.