Barclays Center Sked Filling Up; Globetrotters First Hoops Game?

Unless the Nets play their first preseason game at Barclays Center between October 3 and October 6, it looks like the first professional basketball to take the court in Brooklyn will be a team from another borough. Not the Knicks, but the Harlem Globetrotters, who are booked for 5 p.m. Sunday, October 7.

Arena schedulers have said the October 2 preseason NHL game between the Devils (former landlords) and Islanders (future tenants?) will be the arena's first sporting event. So that leaves early October or later in the month after Barbra Streisand and KingsMen concerts for the first preseason game. In 2010, the Nets played preseason games on October 3 vs. Maccabi Haifa and October 5 vs. the Sixers. An eight-game schedule ended October 20 in Boston.

Construction documents have long listed October 17 as the date for the Nets first preseason game, but team officials have always been careful to note that that schedule was just for planning purposes.

• Harlem Globetrotters Come to Brooklyn, 10/7 - Barclays Center