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The Nets are moving their "war room" from the PNY Center to the team's basketball operations campus at Barclays Center for the NBA Draft on June 27. While David Stern and Adam Silver will be calling out names (shortly after Woj tweets them), Billy King and his team will be conferring and making calls not that far away in the arena's basketball operations "campus", aka the locker room, a few hundred feet rather than miles away.
The arrangement will be unique. In the past, the Draft has been held in a big NBA arena with team reps, including the home team's, scattered around the country in training facilities. The Nets, of course, use both PNY Center in East Rutherford and the Barclays Center's practice court. By being on "campus," Nets execs will be available for interviews and perhaps live shots on ESPN. Normally, team executives are interviewed from remote locations but in Brooklyn, there will be nothing to stop King --or the new coach, whoever he is-- from joining the likes of Chad Ford and Jay Bilas on stage.
The Nets have hosted the NBA Draft three straight years, the last two at Prudential Center, pressed into service as construction crews renovated Madison Square Garden and built Barclays Center. The team expects a crowd of 4,500 on hand, large by draft standards.
Team insiders also know the league will be watching how things go. The Nets --and Knicks-- are hoping to host the 2015 NBA All-Star Game and the Draft could serve as an audition. Tickets are on sale for the Draft, three weeks from tonight at 7 p.m.