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November 16, 2009
It Came From The Blogosphere...
Nets Daily - The CSKA Temptation
This is speculation about where oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov might draft players should the deal to sell the Nets to him proceed.
Mikhail Prokhorov knows international players, as do those around him. It should come as no surprise that they see European players as a rich vein of basketball talent that’s been under-prospected, under-mined. After all, he spent a lot of money stocking the CSKA Moscow roster with mostly European talent during the 13 years he owned the club.
CSKA had the Euroleague’s highest payroll before Prokhorov sold out last year, around $55 million annually. That’s just below what the Nets’ roster is being paid this year, low by NBA standards, but in the Euroleague, it’s an astronomical figure. Of the 20 highest paid European players in 2008-09, eight were on CSKA’s roster, including three of the top six and five of the top ten.
Considering Prokhorov’s history, we thought we’d take a look at the CSKA roster the last few years to see if any of them might be tempted to join their old boss should he finally get control of the Nets…and which might be valuable pieces for the Nets. Those still with CSKA might very well be tempted to move. The team’s new owners have reportedly cut expenditures by 30% this year.
As his old coach, Ettore Messina, noted this week, Prokhorov almost always left basketball decisions at CSKA to his basketball people and didn’t let his own biases play into roster decisions. He’s no Mark Cuban. Still, why not take a look at the possibilities, those players who were either developed or brought in on his watch. After all, these are the players he knows best. We broke them down into three categories: draft prospects, young prospects and NBA-ready (including three who have played in the NBA previously) plus one big wild card.
Big Government - Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed: Terror Trials in the Big Apple
by John M. O'Hara
This right-leaning blog is incensed about the announcement of a terror trial to be held in New York, but not too incensed to get in a dig at Bruce Ratner and his connection with ACORN.
Yesterday, I wrote about the curious connection that major Obama and ACORN supporter Bruce Ratner has to the Department of Justice – the very department that refuses to initiate a criminal trial of ACORN. It just so happens that Bruce Ratner’s brother, Michael Ratner, shares the terrorist coddling sympathies of Attorney General Eric Holder.
Land Use Prof Blog - Sports stadiums: if you build it, will they come?
There can't be a discussion of publicly-subsidized sports facilities without mentioning the proposed Atlantic Yards Project.
For you football fans out there, here is a Sunday post about the recurring issue in many cities about building a new sports stadium, either for the local team or to attract a new team to town. There are a lot of land use issues bound up in these controversies. Cities like to have sports teams, not just for the city's sports fans, but also very much for the broader but nebulous civic sense that the city is a "major-league" town or that it has "arrived." Claims are made about the economic development that must surely result from the construction of fancy new digs for the team. Transit and traffic issues are involved. Location: should the stadium be in the suburbs, or downtown? What will be the impact on neighborhoods? On property values and taxes? On the environment? Of course, the gorilla in the room is the question of who pays--the team or the taxpayer? People don't want to lose their team, but neither do they want to be held "hostage" by the wealthy owners' demands. Then there is the problem of land assembly. How much eminent domain will be needed?
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And of course, don't forget the simmering controversy over the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards project, which combines a Kelo-style master redevelopment plan (and heartburn over eminent domain) with all of these issues about public involvement with bringing a new sports team (the NBA Nets franchise) to town, and the litigation in Goldstein v. New York State Urban Redevelopment Corporation.
Estate - Goldstein Offered Less Than What He Paid for Condo
On Saturday the Wall Street Journal ran an anti-eminent domain op-ed by the Manhattan Institute’s Nicole Gelinas. The writer argues that the state is masking an economic development motive in its push for the use of eminent domain in the Atlantic Yards footprint by falsely categorizing the area as blighted. AY Report notes, “not every block was thriving, but Prospect Heights was surely on the way up.” The piece also says that Develop Don’t Destroy’s Dan Goldstein is now being offered less money for his home, in the building above, than what he paid for it in 2003: “The letter they received in September informed them that the state will compensate them $510,000 for their property—less than what they bought it for and less than half of what Mr. Ratner offered to pay them for it four years ago. It’s also less per square foot than what Mr. Ratner expects to sell his luxury apartments for once they are built. ‘I think [the state] lowballs to deter people from fighting like we have,’ Mr. Goldstein told me.” Goldstein paid $590,000 for his 1,290-square-foot apartment, or $457 a foot, and the state is now offering him $395 a foot; AY Report writes that state consultants prepared a report saying that prices in Prospect Heights now start at $470 a foot and go up to $1,225 a foot.
Nets Are Scorching - Podcast Episode 9
At about the 24:30 mark of this podcast, there is discussion of how Mikhail Prokohorov would be interested in keeping the Nets in New Jersey if the proposed Atlantic Yards project falls through. Keeping the team in New Jersey would make Nets fans very happy. It would please quite a few people here in Brooklyn, too.
Posted by steve at November 16, 2009 11:50 AM