CAVALIERS COVERAGE
The Plain Dealer
NBA Insider: Are Nets' plans unraveling?
by Brian Windhorst
Sunday November 02, 2008, 4:50 PM
With LeBron James bouncing on stage with Jay-Z at a Barack Obama rally this week at The Q, fresh rounds of the NBA's most popular off-court story hit the mass media.
An article in New York Newsday, a column on Yahoo! Sports, a segment on ESPN all about where LeBron will be headed, besides Cleveland of course, starting in 2010. Some of them even have excellent points and reasoning. Though with the Cavs slated to have their best team in James' tenure, the suggested reasons for departure are shifting from the supporting cast's ineptitude to other reasons, such as marketing and the like.
By the way, there will never be a lack of supposed reasons. It is part of the deal having a superstar everyone else wants. Even in major markets with winning teams -- just ask the Lakers.
However, that blade can cut both ways. Which is why the state of the New Jersey Nets is just as germane to discuss as how much LeBron idolizes Nets part-owner Jay-Z. For the moment we'll ignore the New York Knicks' unofficial "Get LeBron" plan, which is to somehow trade players with huge salaries that they don't play, decline to sign the players they do play to extensions, and yet still create an attractive team for any major free agent two years from now. (Thought this one was funny... tS)
With a better rebuilding plan in place because of smaller salary commitments, a deeper and more diverse group of young players and more draft picks coming than their neighbors across the Hudson, basketball-wise the Nets are better positioned. However, business and building-wise they may be headed for ruin.
In the last month, three pieces of news have surfaced about the Nets and all of it may contribute to doom for their dreams of getting James' interest despite what you may read, listen to and see elsewhere.
First, a New York appellate court cleared a lawsuit to go forward that will further delay groundbreaking of the Nets' Brooklyn arena for at least six months. James, of course, piqued interest over the summer when he said his favorite New York borough was Brooklyn. Nary a mention of the Bronx, home of his supposed beloved Yankees, or any community in Jersey where the Nets currently play in perhaps the most dilapidated arena in the NBA.
The $1 billion Frank Gehry-designed Brooklyn project, which once promised to be opened by late 2009, now may not be ready until the 2012-13 season, a full two seasons after James' free agency. But, in reality, there's a chance it may never open at all.
Second, the New York Times reported the Nets' $400 million arena naming rights deal with Barclays Capital has a clause requiring financing to be settled by the end of this month. The team owner and Cleveland native, Bruce C. Ratner, has been tussling trying to get bonds for the arena, part of his $4 billion Atlantic Yards development. Barclays recently said it is still supporting the project, but here's two things you don't want to be doing these days if you are a real estate developer: attempting to get new financing or re-negotiating terms with an investment bank.
Third, the New York Daily News broke a story this week that Ratner met with investors earlier this year in an attempt to sell controlling interest in the Nets to cash out some equity. No word on whether Jay-Z wanted to dump his minor investment in the team. The Nets denied it but the Daily News stood behind their source, an investor who said he listened to Ratner's pitch.
Before last Tuesday's Cavs opener in Boston, NBA Commissioner David Stern said he had been assured all the financial and judicial issues would be settled and the Nets would be in Brooklyn "at some point."
So is all this a bunch of mumbo jumbo and does it really mean anything when it comes to James' future? Perhaps not, but it is a peek to the other side where the grass certainly isn't greener right now.
