Ever since they landed in Brooklyn, in their weird space egg of a stadium, the Nets have been committed to being part of the Brooklyn community. It’s why the food court is full of $10 slices of Junior’s cheesecake, it’s why they mirror your own miserable experience by dealing with their leaky roof with buckets and it’s why they’ve been sold like a hot real estate asset from almost the moment of their inception, with the team on the block just five years into the Mikhail Prokhorov era. And if you’ve got a spare $2 billion, they could be yours!
Yes, after first trying to move the Nets’ assets to Russia, Mikhail Prokhorov has decided that he’d like to cash in his lottery ticket now and sell the team, which Bloomberg notes lost $144 million last year, for the second time in their existence. It’s a pretty quick retreat for an owner who came into town talking a big game about how he didn’t give a shit about a luxury tax and how he’d get married if the team didn’t win a championship within five years, but if you watched them get dismantled by the Rockets last night, you’d want to throw in the towel too.
Of course, despite all the money they lost and despite the fact that the team is 16-22 with no ability to build through the draft and despite the fact that the team will be paying Joe Johnson $25 million next year, the Nets are still an incredibly valuable buy. Prognosticators that Bloomberg talked to predicted that the team could sell for more than $2 billion thanks to the Nets playing in New York City. They also described the Nets as a “marquee” franchise, which, come on. So sure we’re laughing right now, but we guess Mikhail Prokhorov will have the last laugh since he’s gonna cash a $2 billion check and the Nets will be left with the next delusional billionaire owner who insists on trading Mason Plumlee and two future first-round picks for…oh let’s say Pau Gasol.