No Land Grab

Nets' Owner Starts Over By RICHARD SANDOMIR

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., Feb. 9 - The pregame was easy for Bruce C. Ratner.

Ratner, the principal owner of the Nets, chatted with team officials over a turkey dinner Wednesday night at the Winners Club restaurant inside Continental Arena, then greeted Magic Johnson and Richard J. Codey, the acting governor of New Jersey, at courtside.

Fans reached out with their hands and suggestions. Ratner strolled through the new prefabricated Nissan Courtside Club to mingle with elite seat-holders, as well as Jason Kidd's wife, Joumana, as they supped on frankfurters and popcorn.

Then he suffered - quietly. He sat unobtrusively, usually with his arms folded over his chest, as the Lakers erased the Nets' 12-point fourth-quarter lead. He wondered about the identity of these largely nameless Lakers, who were showing perseverance without the injured Kobe Bryant.

"Who are these guys?" he said.

With each missed Nets shot, Ratner uttered a barely audible, "Oh, no." When the Lakers' Chucky Atkins tied the score at 92-92, Ratner shook his head sadly in disbelief.

In overtime, when Caron Butler's 3-pointer put the Lakers ahead for good, 102-101, Ratner emitted a pained, "Unnhhh."

With the score at 104-101 with 36 seconds left, Ratner, a tiny, rueful smile creasing his round face, said: "Anything can happen on any given night in sports. But I still don't like it."

When the game ended in the Nets' 28th loss of the season, Ratner slapped his right thigh, exhaled and said: "I've got a sinking feeling. It's far better to win."

Praying for Vince Carter to hit a buzzer beater is a new feeling for Ratner, who is 60. He was not an especially knowledgeable fan when he bought the Nets last year and was painted by critics as a developer who dipped into basketball only to move the team to a new Brooklyn arena by 2007 or 2008 and make a big real estate score.

It may be a while before he erases that image. There has been community opposition to his plan to build the arena and surrounding residential and commercial buildings, as well as discontent about how he has pursued his goal.

Norman Siegel, a lawyer for Develop Don't Destroy, said that Ratner had not provided enough information to neighborhoods about the project.

"Ideally," Siegel said, "a developer would reach out and meet with people and disclose his plans in detail so the people affected would understand what's happening."

But Bruce Bender, an executive vice president of Ratner's company, Forest City Ratner, said: "We've gone above and beyond to meet with the community. We've met with all the community boards. We've never turned down anyone. We have been very open. To say we haven't is wrong, deceitful and outrageous."

Forest City Ratner is the development partner of The New York Times Company in building a new headquarters in Manhattan on Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st streets. For Ratner, the opposition to the Brooklyn development was a prelude to the ferocious reaction to the Nets' trading Kenyon Martin to Denver last summer, which Ratner subsequently called a mistake. After the Nets then traded Kerry Kittles, Jason Kidd said he wanted to leave.

The criticism was unlike anything Ratner had encountered as the commissioner of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs from 1978 to 1982 and as an urban developer. Both jobs, he said, had positive elements to them, but lacked the renown of owning a sports team.

"It was difficult for me the first three months, but it was a good trial by fire," he said. "I was horribly criticized. I got used to thickening my skin."

He said that he had atoned for much of the media and fan savaging when Rod Thorn, the Nets' president, and Ed Stefanski, the general manager, traded for Vince Carter. Ratner said that deal symbolized his belief that a solid organization, like his real estate company, could rebound with smart decisions.

"I didn't expect it to happen so quickly, that I'd be proven right," he said.

The impression that Ratner's intentions were purely real-estate driven was exacerbated by his status as a neophyte basketball fan. His sports memories reflect his upbringing in Cleveland - his love of the football Browns, and his first baseball game, the 1-0 no-hitter pitched by the Yankees' Allie Reynolds against the Indians in 1951.

"My father bought tickets for Game 5 of the 1954 World Series," he said, but the Indians, who won 111 games that season, were swept by the Giants. "When the Indians were last in the World Series, I made sure to buy tickets for Game 5." (The Marlins won the '97 World Series in seven games.)

To elevate his knowledge of basketball, Ratner plays the NBA Live video game on his computer; trolls the Internet for news and statistics; and bought the league's pay-per-view games on the N.B.A.'s League Pass subscription service.

"I watched the San Antonio game the other day to prepare for our game on Friday," he said. "I'm learning. Until 1983, I didn't know a thing about real estate."

Thorn, who has spent 40 years in the National Basketball Association as a player and an executive, said: "He's become a fan. He knows more about the game than he did before."

Ratner's challenges are hardly related to whether he can recite Wilt Chamberlain's free-throw percentage on the night he scored 100 points. It is, however, crucial that he build up the franchise in the years before the move to Brooklyn. Attendance is down this season by nearly 4 percent, to an average of 14,952 a game. Empty seats were noticeable Wednesday night throughout the arena. For most of the first half, there were five empty seats right in front of Ratner's.

"It doesn't break my heart," he said. "It's not whole empty sections. But when I look at N.B.A. games with whole empty sections, that scares me."

To maintain and add revenue, Ratner hired Brett Yormark, a former Nascar executive, as president of the team's parent company; created the Courtside Club from unused space near the basketball court's entrance; added areas for sponsor hospitality; reduced the price of 3,000 upper-tier seats to $15; initiated a postgame concert series; and distributes free tickets to deserving high school students.

During Wednesday's game, about 50 students from Thomas Jefferson High School in the East New York section of Brooklyn left their upper-level seats to meet Ratner, one after another, thanking him for their tickets.

Ratner said he was not concerned that reducing ticket prices or giving away a substantial number of tickets would hurt his bottom line. "Eighty percent of the revenues is in 20 percent of the seats in the lower bowl," he said.

He refused to divulge the state of the team's finances and said that before he sells the future in Brooklyn, he will build revenue in a market that has historically not fully supported the Nets and will, to some extent, be left behind.

"I don't accept that we can't substantially improve our business with the right product," he said.

He added, "With the right product, you can mess up the marketing."

One aspect of improved marketing is the imminent hiring of Marv Albert to call about 50 Nets games for the YES Network next season. Drawing Albert, a Brooklyn native, who is closely identified with the Knicks after calling their games for 35 years before leaving the MSG Network last June, is a public relations coup for the Nets.

Ian Eagle, who has called Nets game for 11 years, is deciding whether to accept a diminished role of about 30 games.

"Ian is very good," Ratner said. "But Marv is the gold-plated standard. It's our philosophy to get the very best people. I think I'm doing the right thing. There'll be some negative reaction about Ian, but it will turn out to be a positive thing."

There was little positive in the Nets' locker room after Wednesday's loss.

Ratner walked slowly from player to player, saying, "Tough loss." Not one looked up at him.

Ratner seemed forlorn when he walked out and decided against going back in to console Coach Lawrence Frank.

"I'm going to replay this game in my head," he said, before driving off in the rainy night in his chauffeured Lexus.