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January 11, 2011
Window Closing Again on Melodrama
NetsAreScorching
by Mark Ginocchio
The bad soap opera otherwise known as the New Jersey Nets is taking its toll on fans. Take Mark Ginocchio, for example.
In a move that should surprise nobody who’s been following this saga since the Fall, new reports late last night indicate that talks between the Nets, Nuggets and Pistons are moving further and further away from the goal line and a Carmelo Anthony to Nets trade is in jeopardy.
...From my perspective, the problem is this has become a lose-lose proposition. With reports out there that Mikhail Prokhorov apparently wants ‘Melo at any cost, even suggesting he would forgo an extension, the Nuggets have the Nets over a barrel with no leverage. If the Nets end up having to take on a contract like Al Harrington’s, just to make this deal happen, it would be a terrible deal from a cap flexibility perspective, and it would make it increasingly more difficult for the Nets to get Chris Paul in 2012, which I think should be the ultimate end game here. But the Nets have also come too far to watch this deal collapses. With 8 players on the roster rumored to move, this team is surely all but mentally lost right now, and if this talks last until the deadline in mid-February, the toxicity around this organization gets worse and worse.
Then there are the fear mongerers around the legitimate media and blogging community who believe if Anthony ends up as a Knick then Brooklyn “fails.” For one, what is the definition of failure here? Is construction going to stop in Brooklyn and Daniel Goldstein going to get his condo back? Would David Stern, after sticking his neck for Brooklyn, then Prokhorov, going to contract the Nets if they don’t sell out every game for their first five seasons? It’s a paranoid argument being used by those to capitalize on the inferiority complex of a fan base. I, for one, will continue to support this team with or without ‘Melo, New Jersey or Brooklyn. I root for the New Jersey Nets, not the stock price of Forest City Ratner, or Prokhorov’s Onexim.
NoLandGrab: A political opponent once quipped about then-presidential candidate George H.W. Bush that he was "born on third base and thought he hit a triple." Well, it seems that Nets' owner Mikhail Prokhorov was handed a sweetheart deal on former Soviet state assets and thought he was a charismatic Russian Warren Buffett.
Posted by eric at January 11, 2011 11:04 AM