No Land Grab

Nets' Owner Staying a Stormy Course
By LIZ ROBBINS

Bruce Ratner had not yet been approved as the principal owner of the Nets, and he knew next to nothing about basketball. But as he watched the Nets in the playoffs last spring and felt the electricity around the team, he recalled having this gut reaction, "We've got to keep Kenyon."

Ratner, a 59-year-old real estate developer, now spends his time trying to persuade fans not to abandon a team that plans to abandon New Jersey for Brooklyn by 2008 and a team that abandoned Kenyon Martin in a series of jumbled decisions last summer.

Ratner took responsibility for Martin's departure to Denver. "It hurt everything," he said during an interview last Friday at the Nets' offices. "It was a mistake."

The Martin trade caused a loss in attendance and in revenue, but more significantly, it might cause the loss of Jason Kidd, the Nets' franchise player. So upset about the organization's dismantling of a team that had won back-to-back Eastern Conference titles - Kerry Kittles was traded and Lucious Harris was let go - Kidd has asked to be traded.

Kidd has not rescinded that request since returning from knee surgery four games ago and helping the Nets win three of those games. But his tone is far different from 2001, when he first arrived and boldly predicted that the Nets would unseat the Knicks as the No. 1 team in the metropolitan area.

For three years, the Nets won 12 of 14 games from the Knicks and swept last season's first-round playoff series. But as the teams meet tonight for the first time this season - at Continental Arena - the pendulum has swung back to the Knicks, who are atop the Atlantic Division at 10-10. The Nets are 7-13.

"We're starting to play a little bit better; we still have a long ways to go," Kidd said with little conviction after a practice. "With the changes we made, everybody feels we're vulnerable, but you still have to go out and play the game."

Ratner does not want to trade Kidd, who has five years and $90 million left on his contract. "It's nice to rumor about it, but as far as I'm concerned, and as far as Rod is concerned, it's not in the cards," Ratner said.

"When you're looking at Jason, when he's healthy, he's one of the best players in the league," Rod Thorn, the Nets' president, said yesterday. "There are only a handful of players like him who make everybody better."

It was no coincidence that Richard Jefferson, whom the Nets have signed to a six-year, $73 million deal, was named the Eastern Conference player of the week yesterday. He averaged 24.5 points, 51.6 percent shooting, 6 rebounds and 5 assists in four games.

"You never want to trade a great player unless you can make a deal to make your team better," Thorn said. "I expect Jason to be here."

Several people within the Nets organization believe that Kidd will not finish the season with the Nets and that Ratner is focused instead on cutting costs for his real estate venture in Brooklyn and selling luxury suites for the new arena. "It's not better than a 50-50 chance he will stay," a person briefed on the Nets' decision making said.

Ratner denies that he wants to cut costs. But he sees the paradox in the Nets' losing money as a result of trading Martin.

"Compared to our sales last year, my guess is it will be off only 12, 15 percent in dollars, which isn't a lot, 5 or 6 million dollars," Ratner said. "Would it have cost us more than 5 or 6?" he said of re-signing Martin to a maximum contract starting at $12 million. "Yes, but when you think about it, it could be 5 or 6 million dollars for a whole bunch of years."

The principle mistake, Ratner said, was not committing to signing Martin weeks before Denver made its maximum salary offer along with a promise for upfront payments, something the Nets could not afford.

But Ratner's priority at the time of free-agent signings, was ensuring that the sale was approved. "There was a lot going on," Ratner said.

According to three other people who were involved in the Martin negotiations and spoke on condition of anonymity, there was chaos between the group of investors from Goldman Sachs, which had put up close to $50 million of the $300 million asking price for the Nets. The Goldman Sachs group was opposed to Martin signing and threatened to pull out if he were re-signed.

"In hindsight, I should have felt more confident and pushed to do it earlier," Ratner said. "I got persuaded by people who I thought knew more about basketball than I did.

"They did know more, they probably still do, but I think I had a much better sense of the intangibles. I really tried to do a real analysis of the intangibles and my conclusion was overwhelming, it's better to keep Kenyon."

But the ownership group determined that the N.B.A. would have a luxury tax, doubling the team's expenditure if they re-signed Martin. Now it seems almost certain there will be no luxury tax assessed this season.

The Nets found they could not match Denver's offer sheet, which promised Martin front-loaded payments. He was traded for three draft picks, and he could earn $92 million over seven years.

Goldman Sachs pulled out as an investor just before the sale last August, and was replaced by a group of previous Nets owners. The deal was approved. Thorn, so frustrated by the experience, wanted to apply for the Toronto general manager's job, but Ratner would not let him be interviewed.

Thorn eventually signed a five-year deal worth roughly $20 million. Coach Lawrence Frank, 34, signed a relatively cost-effective deal worth roughly $2 million a year.

What has emerged from the summer, in Ratner's mind, is a new sense of direction and a comprehensive plan to win back fans. But is it too late?

During the Nets best seasons, attendance was still one of the lowest in the league. Kidd complained about the team's thin marketing efforts that did not promote him.

Now Ratner, who is the development partner of The New York Times Company in a new building for the newspaper's headquarters, has instituted sweeping changes. The Nets are giving out free tickets to school groups and trying to engender community sponsorship. Cheap seats in the upper decks cost $15, although on the night Kidd returned, they were mostly empty.

The Nets are upgrading the experience of the entertainment and providing greeters in the parking lot and at gates. They are sponsoring postgame concerts to draw fans.

And yet, the Nets have the second-lowest attendance in the league, behind Atlanta, at an average of 13,538. Ratner said the Nets gave away close to 3,000 tickets a game. He said that performance was obviously "the critical item."

Thorn and General Manager Ed Stefanski control that aspect. Ratner is hiring a financial officer.

"We're going to spend money," Ratner said. "Are we going to spend the Knicks' $100 million dollars? No, we can't do that. We're losing a lot of money. There's a limit."

Ratner, the chief executive of Forest City Ratner Companies, will often quote from the book "The Wisdom of Crowds," by James Surowiecki, the financial writer for The New Yorker. Ratner strongly believes that people - fans - and not experts have the right idea. He has met with season-ticket holders at breakfasts and focus sessions.

The only problem is getting the crowds into the arena. One player might have the power to do that.

"Yes, we don't have Kenyon but we have Jason," Ratner said. "If we keep Jason, there's no reason why we shouldn't be very good."

"If" being the operative word for the Nets these days.

Jason Diamos contributed reporting for this article.