Prokhorov Confirms Negotiations with Nets, Wants Control

Sounds like Prokhorov has to deal with crap from hispeople the same as you have to here in the US. Very excited about his pending ownership. This type of liquidity guarantees Brooklyn if everything is cleared in Oct. This also means an infusion of cash for Rod Thorn to work with possibly even this season. Imagine if he doesnt have to sit there everyday constrained by staying below the cap.Imagine a team/product that Brett Y will be able to sell not just signage and branding deals.

we are getting Lebron and a pf!!! And we will be champs in 2 yrs!!! The Knicks will be bumming along with Kobe and KG. Cannot wait to see their faces when be beat up on them. I bet all of the stars past their prome will be begging to sign with the Nets to win a championship. It starts with deep pockets, that leads to Brooklyn, which leads to Lebron which leads to other free agents which leads to a title….We will be the Yankees of basketball.

i agree..the knicks think people will play wuth them just because they’re the knicks. They’ve already been burned by two big free agents. J-kidd and grant hill

How does this guarantee brooklyn? He might want to move the team to Newark. My question is why is Ratner selling the team?

It’s been reported for months that the only way Prokhorov, the former Yahoo Yahoo CEO or the guy who is already a minority owner in the team (Vinny Viola?) would buy the Nets is if they thought they could move them to Brooklyn. That’s where the money is. Plus it was also reported this week that Prokhorov is preparing an $800 million bond for the Nets arena. He’s supposed to buy the franchise for only $1.00

I really hope this deal goes through. I want an owner who’s gonna spend money on us. We’re already loaded with young cheap talent and international attention thanks to Yi Jianlian. It makes perfect sense for Prokhorov to buy us assuming he believes he can get us to Brooklyn.

I just hope Proky doesn’t start dating Paris Hilton. The Nets with Jay-Z, Beyonce, and now Proky… I wonder if Joan Rivers will do play by play. Does Mike Fratello have to get a new nickname? At least nobody can say the Nets are boring anymore.

I’m still confused how he only spends $1 to get a stake in the nets. Can some one help me out on that one. lol

@erick

The value of building Barclays is greater than the franchise itself. If anything, getting anything, even if it’s just a penny is a great deal for Ratner if it means that Barclays is funded.

My thinking is that FCR is finding it tougher than expected to get these bonds sold. They are desperate and that’s where the Russian comes in. I still haven’t seen one quote attributed to him that says that he wants to do this yet we see it all over the place.

It is official….It went across the new tape that he made an official offer…..Brooklyn is where the $ is, not Newark. I feel bad for the fans in NJ that supported this team for the last 3 decades, but the team was a NY team originally. There are also a lot more Russians and Chinese in Brooklyn. Maybe we will get AK47 too. We will have the Russian and Chinese markets….

Ratner really doesn’t care about the stadium or the Nets. He wants to build a housing and office complex. Nets stadium is the centerpiece. So I guess he is willing to give up stadium and the Nets for the office complex to be built around the Nets arena.

On his Wikipedia entry it says there’s a global tendency for sports clubs in deep financial trouble to report he is becoming an investor in them in order to attract attention and it specifically lists the Nets as one of those teams. That doesnt sound too promising. I still dont see how this gets done if he has to get the approval of the Russian Government, Ratner has to get the court cases to stop delaying him, and they have to work out an agreement on who owns the arena since Ratner wants the Nets to lease it from him as tenants. You dont become a billionaire by getting fleeced by guys like Ratner, so I’m sure he would want to OWN the arena and not rent it from Ratner. Seems like it would take longer than Dec 31 to get that all done. Also, does anyone know if there is any process that would have to be followed on the part of the U.S. Government before Prokhorov would be allowed to invest so much money? I dont know how international investing in a U.S. sports team/business like the Nets/NBA works or even business investments from Russia to the U.S. period. If there is a process, how long does it generally take? That could also cause a delay and Ratner pretty much has about 100 days to get this all done in total.

He’s going to put up reversible flags that have “CCCP” on one side and “TWILL” on the other.

Okay, bad jokes aside, if you’re a naysayer about him buying the team, I gotta admit, the guy has money, makes money, and probably realizes the opportunity to “buy low” right now into a franchise. I’ll take him over the current cuckoos. And if he screws up, I’ll just get out my old Rocky VHS tapes and show him how we smacked down Drago!

@TheMann
It is very, very real. I am not speculating.

The article seems lean toward Prokhorov financing of the Barclays more than actually owning and running the team.
 As someone point out before should this guy take over,don’t expect business as usual. He may end up cleaning house

He wants to be principal owner.

jason,
ratner maybe interested in selling the team because we’re losing ALOT OF MONEY

@Net Income
I dont think you, yourself, are speculating, you have a lot of links to sources, etc. I’m just wondering how accurate this all is since that’s on his Wikipedia entry(not that Wikipedia is the end all be all, but it is a pretty decent reference source). I think it would be great if he bought the team since by all accounts he loves basketball. I would like to see a true basketball fan that wants to WIN own the team, rather than someone like Ratner who only wants to make money. If Prokhorov buys the team I would support the move to Brooklyn because that’s reportedly the only way he would purchase the team and that would be best for the TEAM and not just Ratner. I dont want the team to move just to line Ratner’s pockets. We would end up leasing the arena from him and not making the profits that the Nets could by owning the arena. Hopefully this really is whats happening, now im just concerned about the issues in my previous post as far as approvals from the Russian gov’t, etc. might be concerned. I would hope the deal wouldnt hit the snag of the Dec 31 deadline.

Has anyone actually stopped and thought about all of this for just a second??? This is absolute madness!!!!!!! Make this go away David Stern – you have a brand new, state of the art arena waiting for you in your home state! The state where this team has played in your league for the past three decades. No Russian prostitutes, slimy deals, team playing for five years “without a home” according to its ownership and marketing slimeball. Make this end David, make this end.

lawrence frank is a goner!

I wouldn’t worry to much about the Russian “Putin” government. I would worry more about our government or lack of it. The bottom line is David Stern. If Stern wants Proky and the Nets in Brooklyn, it will probably get done. I wonder if Larry Frank is brushing up on his Russian. How do you say “Please don’t fire me” in Russian?

Reading Proky’s translated blog reminds me of Greta Garbos dialogue in that great movie “Ninotchka”. Net fans, fasten your seatbelts, we are in for a bumping ride!

Well looking at the site update it seems as though Prokhorov expects it to be done very soon. Great news!

‘"Please don’t fire me" in Russian?’

Ne….mnya poshalustha :)

Don’t know the word for fire….

Can somebody filter out Russian and post the translation. Please. Maybe Net Income……

When I picture the Russian national team using our facility, I totally picture the training montage in Rocky 4, where Drago is training with all the best high tech training equipment and Rocky is running through the snow and pulling logs and stuff.

Besides AK47… who else can play in the NBA from Russia?
Umm i find that part about bringing “top russian coaches and managers to the nba” quite interesting…

@Tony
its fine in Firefox. No russian.

now those red uniforms make sense!

Everyone, greetings!
All of a sudden realized that well for a long time did not write anything, and this is the reason – the last months at work was an enormous amount of routine, and somehow there was an interesting occasion. Now we have – our group has recently received a proposal to participate in a business project of building a new arena in Brooklyn (New York) and entering the shareholders of the basketball team the New Jersey Nets, which 2 years should move to Brooklyn and will be named " Brooklyn Nets.
The most interesting thing about this project, I learned from the newspapers, as well as the fact that I accept в нем активное участие! active part in it!
And what was the surprise when a few days after publication in the press on our team left the shareholders with the actual offer to discuss possible collaboration!
The discussion ended with the receipt from the American offer to shareholders of legal entry into the project.

Our group participated in such a complex project clearly interested only in the case of the use of technology for the systematic development of NBA basketball in Russia.

Exist in our professional league, as you know, to earn the money can not, and therefore the financial well-being and existence of the club depends entirely on the support or governors, or the capabilities businessmen, sports fans, and any changes in their financial situation lead to instability of the club.

 Another problem – the system of training young athletes and the opportunity for them to get playing time in decent clubs. When supports professional club, there is a perfectly natural desire to quickly get results, and rapid result gives an invitation to the team of foreign players.
 And his young players for several years “sitting on the bench” without enough playing time.
(It can responsibly say that PBC CSKA “killed” several very promising young guys who are aged 16-17 years, “brought” to its European peers by 30 points in the youth Euroleague). Hence the conclusion – it is necessary to change the model of the development of basketball in Russia using a super modern systems of training of athletes (this is an innovative model). The basis for the development should be a strong student basketball league with access to children’s sports schools. These and loans, if you sell the deal.

At the weekend I sent the shareholders of New Jersey "a counter-proposal for inclusion in the project, taking into account Russia’s interests:

   1. Commercial terms:

- ONEXIM extend credit to build a new arena in Brooklyn secured a substantial stake in the project.

- Controlling the team the New Jersey goes to the group for a symbolic price.

- Under the deal the group will attract a similar loan to western banks (I think, if successful, the deal will simply unique!).

   2. Qualitative criteria:

- Russia will receive an equal place in the elite world of basketball.

- Access to all the modern technologies and training techniques with the ability to use them in Russia.

- Placement of Russia’s leading coaches and managers in the NBA.

- Send the best students in the training camps for the NBA.

For our group ONEXIM implementation is very lucrative business project, participation in which was made possible by the world crisis (never in the history of foreigners owned NBA) will be another direction of development of sporting interests, along with biathlon, support children’s sports and sports.

I think that would be plenty of skeptics (including lzhepatriotov), but the more interesting it will move forward.

All good luck.

This is positive for the Nets they need to move to BK and being in a major market in a new arena will attract more people to games and a higher calibre free agents. The organisation is going in the right direction with its young core and getting far enough under the cap to offer at least one max contract next summer add in the draft picks we have. I predict they will trade some of these picks to the Wolves and sign Ricky Rubio who would love to play in the BK/NY market.

@ Mike Don’t You Mean the film All About Eve, Bette Davis’s character Margo says the immortal line: Fasten your Seat Belts, It’s Going To Be A Bumpy Night.

white blue and red!
LOL It does make sense!

Thanks Bryan

Top Russian prospect, 20 year old Alexey Shved 6’6", PG. he is very athletic and has a high basketball I.Q. He probably owes losing his virginity to one of Prokys business associates. He owes Proky one.

Can someone please name a couple of detailed ways he woulld train russians players by being the owner of the nets?

@Addictive;
  Good catch. You must be a movie fan. I did not confuse "Ninotchka" with “All about Eve”. I just stole the line. “Ninotchka” was a dead on spoof of political customs and manners in the old Soviet Union. Very sophisicated and funny movie.

@ NetsBall4Real;
  He will replace American dead wood with Russian dead wood.
 Details: (Half the Nets team will be speaking Russian in 2 years)

This is such a circus. A lame one at that.

Re training. The NBA offers the best training in the world. If you ever go to the Nets training facility, you will see equipment, some of it custom made, around the edges of the court. And the other thing is that the NBA’s ASSISTANT coaches are the best in the world.

@Trenton
Sad for you, Trenton, but I am not worried. The boys at DDDB will find many, many ways to personally vilify Prokhorov. If they can do it with Ratner who rebuilt Brooklyn from nothing, they can do with a Russian oligarch. It’s their specialty.

i’m likely not the only one disturbed by Proky’s commitment to train Russia’s basketball players and place "Russia’s leading coaches and managers in the NBA." but i rather have the Russian Cuban run the Nets than some joker like Michael Jordan.

“The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! Emergency, Emergency! Everybody to get from streets!”

I’m not worried yet. I just think this is getting out of hand. Some guy comes across saying he’ll fork over millions of dollars for this franchise out of the blue and 90% of this board is ready to feed him grapes without knowing how the process moves forward, how long it will take, what his goal is for this team etc.

They just think if he buys the team that suddenly we will be appealing to free agents, he’ll bring fairy dust to sprinkle on our players to get them into the playoffs and he can hypnotize everyday people into falling in love with the Nets and fill up the arenas on gamenight.

So yes, its a circus, and it’s lame.

@ Trenton;
  Join me in that old spirtual gospel standard;
   “Mikhail row the boat ashore, hallelujah”

@Trenton
Oh please, you filled this board all summer with nonsense about Newark being the Mecca of basketball, the Nets’ bright shining future. Now you’re criticizing people for getting excited about the possibility of one the world’s wealthiest people wanting to buy the team. Please spare us the chastening. (And by the way, as Balzac said, “Behind every great fortune there is a great crime”. None of these guys are clean.)

A lot of things have to happen before this is realized, but considering that the Nets have laid off one quarter of their staff, required the lead assistant to take a 50% cut in pay before leaving and cut salary, this is good news, the first good news of the summer. The franchise has value.

And while I can’t tell you all that I know (and some of what my sources have told me in the past has been wrong), I know that this is very real. It could fall apart, but the fact that Prokhorov has gone public with it says a lot, doesn’t it?

Amazing developments! We’re on our way. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but is it possible that we will have the Russian equivalent of George Steinbrenner running things? You know the type: spend money, make headlines, undermine knowledgable and capable personnel, get suspended here and there for shady dealings—those kinds of things. I think he will certainly do the first two things, and hopefully not the last two. If he trusts in Rod and Kiki on the basketball side, we should be OK. And perhaps Yormark won’t need to resort to insulting marketing stunts if the organization is on a solid financial setting.

The Nets may be the region’s second team, but if they build a consistent contender, that could change in the forseeable future if the Knicks continue to embarrass. I wouldn’t worry too much about the Russian training and personnel items mentioned—based on the information in Helmer’s interesting article, Prokhorov probably needs to make any Nets deal seem relevant to Russia in some way.

BTW, I heard that Prokhorov was actually forced out of his nickel syndicate and given a cash pay-out for his shares, so it wasn’t a case of him having the foresight to sell just prior to the meltdown. Maybe that answers the “if he’s so smart, why is he buying the Nets” questions. But hey, why quibble? After all, it looks like we have an oligarch and the rest of the NBA doesn’t. If that ain’t good, at least it’s better than what we have.

How many Russians does it take to buy the Nets?

Answer (3), Two to hold Ratner and one to smack some sense into him.

This is awesome, but how does he expect us to help get Russia’s coaches into the NBA?

@Trenton
I would love to see the Nets in Newark, that would be my first choice if we had the option of him buying the team and putting them there, but he wants Brooklyn. The fact is almost ANYONE would be a better owner than Ratner right now. I would be happy having a person who owns the team that wants to WIN and puts winning first.

I have no problem with this guy buying the team as long as he spends cash and provides “entertainment” outside of the arena after the games.

@ Mr. Dollar Bills;
  If your looking for entertainment after the game, Prokhorov is your man.

If this goes through at least we know one thing – David Blatt will be the head coach of the Nets within a few years.

He has very strong ties to the Russian basketball league (coached for Dynamo St. Petersburg, rumored to be favorite for CSKA Moscow before Messina decided to stay) and is the current coach of the Russian national team, whom he led to a European championship over Spain in 2007. He has long been rumored to be one the leading candidates to come to America because he was born in the US and played at Princeton before moving to Europe and is known as a player’s coach.

@Net Income

Once again, please show me any previous posts which I declared Newark to be a “Mecca” or grounds for success.

I could care less about fans, financial success, economic numbers and all that. I want the Nets in NJ for my own selfish reasons. Haven’t you seen that yet. I don’t care if there are 44 people in the stands in East Rutherford or Newark. I never said they would be successful, I just want them in NJ.

I’ll wait while you browse through my “summer of nonsense”

@Trenton,

NI openly doubts this proclamation that Prokhorov wants to buy the team because it seems to convenient, but then he can’t seem to make up his mind whether or not he wants to support this latest development.

In short, just ignore it. We both know (and NI knows, as well) that this project is gonna tank any minute. The iceberg it’s about to hit is in sight!

Here’s the point…as I noted yesterday. I learned things yesterday from an Insider that changed my mind.

yes Income, keep attacking the real fans of this team for wanting to see the team remain in New Jersey and get rid of the ABSOLUTE LUNACY that is Ratner, Yormark, “Proky” and his prostitutes. Back in the 90s it was impossible to imagine that our team could ever become a bigger laughingstock in the professional sports world, but your buddy Ratner has managed to take this team to new levels of embarrassment that most of us could have never dreamed of.

While new ownership will inject money into our team, I get this feeling we are substituting one owner who doesn’t care about the Nets for another. The Rat wants his project and Proky only cares about his country. I could just see it now. The first sign that Russia won’t benefit from the Nets this guy will just screw us. I hope there’s a good PF in Russia cuz he is going to play for us faster then you could say where’s Yi. Yi and Opie better get their resumes together real quick. I hope Stern could gage this guy’s intentions before we find out he has another agenda. It’s funny how these Rats find each other.

Oh please. He cares more about his country than the hundreds of millions of dollars he is going to invest in the team?

This is just getting tiresome. Find a negative and embrace it…that’s the mantra here.

I bet Prokhorov is a secret KGB agent trying to destroy our way of life. First he will fill the roster with operatives, who then will fan across the U.S. using the Nets as a front, and before we know it the country will be taken over by Putin and those crazy Ruskies. As long as we win a NBA championship, I could live with this. Oh well…

Your like a mother; always the last to know. If its tiresome just go to sleep. And the Rat didn’t care about his project more than the money he invested. At least this guy knows the game. The Rat didn’t know a basketball from a baseball and learned the game from Opie. As far as embracing negatives, who you got for COY this year.

I say that we go glasnost and perestroika on Prokhorov. It did work on having the USSR collaps especially when Mikhail Gorbachev brought that on himself when reforming communisum. Honestly, those Yakov Smirnoff do get old after hearing them enough times, especially when he says, “In Soviet Russia, this thing does you.” I wonder if this means that borsch will be part of the concession as well.

will the nets logo say the same? lol

Lmao the stuff im reading on this website is unbelievable lol. ANyone who is looking at this as something bad has lost their god given minds. This is veyr good news and with every passing day its getting closer and closer. All we need is these court cases to rule in our favor then we;ll be just fine.

@The Black Prince
Never mind those guys…there is no downside here. Even if he decides against making the deal, it has increased interest in the franchise.

And I am telling you, I have spoken to a number of people on the inside (and not ticket reps) who are saying this is very real and negotiations have been very intense since Friday.

I thought I read that this couldn’t get done without Vinny Viagra.

I don’t understand how this could be anything but a good thing. This is THE most interesting news to hit this off season since, well- a few days ago when Delonte West decided he wanted to be a vigilante superhero.

LMAO…good one

Yea, this is incredibly exciting stuff. Almost like a movie. This isn’t good or bad necessarily — it’s historic.

I thought the Helmer piece was fascinating. So what’s the upshot? It looks like Prokhorov has been trying to get some money out of Russia (as he’d been trying previously with offshore mining investments, and a seemingly frivolous property bid), where it could disappear on the whims of someone who doesn’t like him very much (Deputy PM Sechin), and basketball could be considered just non-businessy enough to get President Medvedev to support the move. He’s saying all the right stuff about it being a move for all of Russian basketball… but it’s got to be about the $700 million that will be out of Russian control too.

So, yea money, but that comes with strings. It’s still better than anything we’re doing now, and the political intrigue is gonna keep me engaged even if the coming season doesn’t.

I forgot to mention that vodka would be replacing beer if he comes.

Woah woah woah “wants to be able to use the Nets to train Russia’s basketball players and place "Russia’s leading coaches and managers in the NBA."” That is such BS, to admit that he would just be using the team for his own purposes and no to win championships. There is no way that the NBA would approve that. Right???

@Nick
What’s the problem with the Nets using their training facilities and coaching staff to train 16 and 17 year old kids in the off season? What’s the problem with hiring an assistant coach from Russia?

There are advantages to the Nets…including getting a look at kids from a country that has a long tradition of quality players.

OF COURSE, the NBA would go along. Why wouldn’t they? Nearly 40% of all NBA players are from foreign countries.

Isnt the NBA trying to “expand the game to the entire globe”? My guess would be this is the next step into achieving just that.

Exactly…unless there are bodies in the Prokhorov family basement, I cant imagine the NBA not approving him.

Of course, the deal could fall through…and it is odd that he publicized his offer on his blog (Even Cuban wouldnt do that.)

He put it on his blog because he is getting excited about his new toy.The important thing here is that this guy LOVES basketball and wants to win at all cost. I will say it again imagine an owner who is willing to let Rod Thorn do what he feels is neccessary to win now.

If what I hear is true, Ratner, Viola and Prokhorov will all come out of this with something. Remember, there are three entities here, with mostly overlapping ownership: limited liability companies that control the Nets, Barclays Center and Atlantic Yards.

Jay-Z remains as well.

A lot has apparently changed in the last three weeks…from what I hear, a lot has changed in the last five days.

Imagine for a minute.

Tremendous resources, Russia, China and Mexico. Add Jay-Z and if LBJ comes we could become the world’s favorite b-ball team and win a few titles along the way.

I can dream.

LeBron likes Vodka!

Hollah!

The DDDB site has a better translation, he is mentioning the NBA mentoring that the Russian Coaches and Managers could get get, I don’t see anything wrong with it. It is similar to how NBA tries to give something back to its community, he is from Russia so obviously him returning back to his community is not in anyway wrong.

If and when this happens that would be a great day in NETS basketball.

To all the guys who keep bringing up the topic of ROCK, I got to remind you the only reason NETS are in ROCK is because of the greed / lousy bargaining of the community of NEWARK. Before Ratner the ownership group had all the qualities people wanted in the Owner, an Owner who wanted to win and with deep pockets, their issue was they wanted ROCK to be built, NEWARK pushed back they even used the threat of selling the team, It didn’t make a dent in NEWARK’s stand.

The Next issue I have is with the New Jesrsey Ownership which also had support of Corzine turned out to be lousy business men.

At the end of it back then we were really lucky that all three prospective owners were at least were in the surrounding area, its the only reason why we are even talking about NETS with the same passion if they had moved to KANSAS or Seattle or away from the Tri-State Area it would not be the same.

I am very happy that NETS are close by are still the second rate team in NY that gives them the same feel of being in NJ and fun would be similar if we replace KNICKS as the number one team in NY Area in all respects.

DDDB has the same translation we do. It’s the Google machine translation. We just had it first. :-)

Not sure about it, I was previously reading on my blackberry the sentences were well formed in theirs, but that might just have been my connection.

So cute, some of you are thinking that Prokhorov is dying to throw his fortune at the Nets.
“The important thing here is that this guy LOVES basketball and wants to win at all cost.”
Please show me where Prokhorov said anything about wanting to win an NBA championship or about spending money on talent?
Recently, NI blogged about how the Nets are looking for a $200M investment in the team to recapitallize the balance sheet. Prokhorov is offering one dollar for a controlling interest! One dollar!
I do think that funding the arena could work out well for Prokhorov. If allowed, he gets cash out of Russia and receives an income stream that is US tax free and guaranteed by the taxpayers of NY. I am not going to get my hopes up for lots of spending on the franchise just yet. Maybe if someone could inform him that Dolan insulted him, then just maybe things could get interesting…

NI, DDDB replaced the google translation with a human one

Sorry guys but lilbigman hit the nail on the head. Are we the only ones who find it a little bit disturbing that the first thing out of this guy’s mouth was that this would be good for Russian basketball?

I don’t like this one bit. This guy is going to be signing Russian players over deserving American ones as well as bringing over assistant coaches under Blatt and what not. If it was just a manner of CSKA playing yearly exhibitions against the Nets and the national team using the Nets practice facility during the summer. Unfortunately, it might not be limited to that. This could open up a huge can of worms that none of us want.

Would it kill this guy to talk about NBA BASKETBALL?

@NI

40% of NBA players don’t come from foreign countries. The number is closer to 15%. Trust me on this. You can go to NBA.com and look at every roster and you’ll see that of the roughly 400-450 players in the league, only around 60-90 are foreign.

It’s beside the point. If this guy knows what he’s doing then I have no problem with it but if he’s using the team as a means to better his countries basketball program then that’s just as bad as Ratner using the Nets for AY.

I agree. If it’s just for letting them train during the offseason and play exhibition games at Barclays then fine. But if upgrading Russian basketball is his #1 priority, and from everything said so far that’s the case, then this sucks.

Also, let’s not get carried away with his value. As long as there’s a salary cap, he’s limited. If anything it could wind up hurting us. This guy COULD try to circumvent the cap in many ways. Not trying to be funny but he could provide players with hookers all during the offseason and stuff like that.

I appreciate Net Income’s enthusiasm for the deal, but I do think there are a few potential pitfalls. The NBA is in insular society. If you think the NBA has trouble dealing with Mark Cuban, just wait until they get a load of someone who is from a completely different culture. I doubt it is going to be smooth. Moreover, it is far from clear that the NBA players will adjust well to this. Will LeBron – or any big name free agent – want to play for a Russian billionaire? I don’t know, but there is a potential for the ownership situation to hurt the team in free agency, even if ownership is willing to spend the money. Finally, it is clear from reading this summary that this guy is going into this to do a lot more than pure basketball. That was always true with Ratner trying to leverage the team for the AY project. But now we are trying to leverage the team for AY and to improve Russian basketball and as a way for this guy to get into American business circles. We’re quickly losing even more focus from the basketball.

That all said, I am tentatively in favor of the takeover. I am a Chelsea FC fan in the EPL. Chelsea has certainly been improved through the ownership by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, so I am looking at it through that lens. I’ve always thought that the Brooklyn project is crucial for the survival of the team as a NY area franchise, and I think this improves the chances of the project happening. In addition, if this guy is anything like Abramovich, he will not have a problem spending to improve the team – free agents and the like. So even if he cannot attract the very top free agents, we likely would not have to through another summer wondering if we have enough free cash to spend on scrubs like Big Baby Davis (and finding out that, no, we will not be spending even that much).

Let’s hear more about this.

@A.S.
Ask yourself this question: what’s the alternative? That is always the question. Suppose this doesn’t happen, and it might not. What’s next?

As for hurting the team in free agency, name the last All-Star who the Nets signed to a free agency deal. Time’s up. Other than Alonzo Mourning—after contracting kidney disease but before undergoing the transplant, the answer is it’s never happened. Jason Kidd and Vince Carter signed new contracts after joining the Nets…but in terms of a top flight free agent willingly joining the Nets, it’s never happened. And it won’t happen next summer either unless there is stable (and wealthy) ownership.

And as noted before, most NBA teams are losing money. Most NBA owners are cutting back. The NBA needs both wealthy owners and international owners. The NBA is no longer an American basketball league. It is an international league. More than 35% of the league’s players are from overseas or Latin America. In the last decade, the Nets have had players from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe…even elsewhere in North America. There are months when most of the NBA’s revenues come from Asia, not North America…and that is particularly true now.

If the NBA denies Prokhorov ownership (assuming there aren’t any bigger skeletons than an arrest for prostitution), it will send a bad signal to other prospective owners from overseas, from China, elsewhere in Asia. The message will be you can invest in teams (like the Chinese investor did in the Cavs) but don’t even think about owning a club. That is definitely not the message the NBA wants to send the world.

The process will be interesting

Mikhail Prokhorov is such a crafty businessman, maybe this is not all he want.
watch for his next move
While all the nets fans are exciting about this, because the movement may lead nets to be the richest club in the league.

KEEP the Nets in New Jersey! Why is an American sports franchise being sold to an international player? There is something extremely wrong with this!

Hey buddies,

Just wanna remind y’all that until it happens, the bit about the training ground for Russians is just lip service. It’s a business deal with a lot of political intrigue. Just my opinion, but I think we should consider it in those terms before we get into any patriotic/xenophobic nonsense.

@NI

Well, the alternative is Vinny Viola or Terry Semler. I’d love either guy if Brooklyn is indeed going to happen. If neither of them is considered an option anymore then are you saying that AY would be doomed if not for the Russian bailing everyone out? If that’s the case, what if this does fall through? Then what?

I would hold out hope that Semmler or Viola are fallback alternatives. And as always, that there are actual investors in Newark if that doesn’t work.

The NBA needs wealthy owners. That’s true. Where they’re from is irrelevant though. Stern would prefer owners who walk the straight and narrow as opposed to risky types. Whether or not he considers this guy risky remains to be seen but I have to think that Ballmer in Seattle or Samueli in Anaheim are the types he looks for in an owner.

FWIW, going alphabetically from Atlanta to Washington, here are the foreign born players in the league as of now….

Pachulia, Horford, Diop, Ajincia, Diaw, Radmanovic, Raja Bell, Deng, Big Z, Varajao, Dirk, Jawai, Barea, Beaubois, Nene, Petro, Jerebko, Biedrins, Turiaf, Scola, Yao, Anderson, Mensah Bonsuh, Gasol, Mbenga, Vujacic, M. Gasol, Thabeet, Haddadi, Jaric, Anthony, Magloire, Diawara, Bogut, Gadzuric, Elson, Ilyasova, Mbah Moute, Delfino, Ukic, Pecherov, Pavlovic, Najera, Yi, Marks, Songaila, Peja, Darko, Gallinari, Krstic, Ibaka, Sefolosha, Gortat, Pietrus, Dalembert, Brezic, Nash, Barbosa, Dragic, Batum, Fernandez, Patty Mills, Casspi, Nocioni, Garcia, Sergio, Beno, Duncan, Mahinmi, Parker, Ginobili, Bargnani, Rasho, Hedo, Belinelli, Calderon, Okur, Fesenko, Koufous, Suton, Kirilenko and Oberto.

That’s 82 players and I included some questionable 2nd round picks like Mills and Jerebko who may not even sign. Assuming a league of 420 players (14 × 30 teams), that’s only 20% of the league. Great number and proves the league is going international all the more but a far cry from 40%. If we were really looking at 40% then I could see a demand for necessary foreign ownership but it’s not at that point yet.

Bottom line is this. If AY is legit, the courts will uphold the ruling and the banks will get the bonds. If not, then it shouldn’t happen on moral and ethical grounds.

JustinNJ Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:30 am

KEEP the Nets in New Jersey! Why is an American sports franchise being sold to an international player? There is something extremely wrong with this!

Why do you care so much about lines on a map?

An American sports franchise is being sold to an international person because he has money and is interested in the basketball team. Would you really prefer the Nets be sold based upon the ethnicity of the buyer?

What makes New Jersey so special and different from New York? They are two of the most intertwined states in the US, especially the areas we are talking about. Are you honestly that infatuated with the name New Jersey that you won’t go to a Nets game because of a name change and a relocation of about 10 miles?

Stop just repeating “No” in your head long enough to think about this.