The cover of the New York Sunday Times Magazine this weekend will feature a man holding a basketball. He is wearing a suit, not a uniform. It's Mikhail Prokhorov, not Michael Jordan. It's about the future, not the past. The Nets owner is the subject of 8,000-word Times profile that deals with his successes in business and now (at least until Friday) in basketball.
Chip Brown details the changes in the team's fortunes since Prokhorov took over, borrowing the phrase, "The Prokhorov Effect", to describe the "euphoria coursing through the reader comments" on NetsDaily the "premier Nets fan site" (shameless plug). "Proky", that reader-coined nickname, encompasses the "sweet sound of salvation" for fans, Brown writes.
Bottom line, though, is what Prokhorov hopes for the Nets. "Money doesn’t drive me," he told Brown. "New ideas, the feeling of team spirit, mean more. To create a team better than any other, that’s what drives me. To find the idea is one thing; to realize the idea is another."
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Mikhail Prokhorov, the Playboy and His Power Games - Chip Brown - New York Times