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July 5, 2012
Front-page news in the Times: "Nets Move to Brooklyn with [a narrow notion of] Legitimacy in Sight"
Atlantic Yards Report
The Times apparently needed a little "USA, USA" fluff for Independence Day.
It's front-page news in the New York Times, coincidentally seven years to the day after another front-page story.
The headline in print today is Nets, After a String of Homes, Hope to Settle Into Brooklyn, but an alternate headline, as indicated by the URL is "Nets Move to Brooklyn with Legitimacy in Sight."
That's a narrow notion of legitimacy, limited to the universe of sporting competitiveness, not to the overall move, one tainted in numerous ways, not least by the recently-emerged scandal regarding naming rights sponsor Barclays.
On the front page, it's glaring: if the only questions reporters ask a handful of fans and basketball professionals are about whether the boldly revamped team can compete, that's all the discussion will concern.
Here's sports columnist/reporter Harvey Araton's conclusion:
The arena is all but built. The star point guard is staying. And the Nets — the first major professional sports team to call Brooklyn home since the Dodgers, and the first to hit the city in 50 years — might actually be capable of taking the borough, if not yet the city, by storm.
Looking for confirmation
So who confirms that?
- James Robinson, 25, who works in a sneaker store not far from the arena
- Brooklyn-born-and-bred hoops star Chris Mullin (who's an NBA analyst for ESPN and was already on board, saying last December, "I love the fact that they’re going to Brooklyn. I think it’s going to work.")
- Robert Liff, a longtime Nets season-ticket holder, who's renewed his season tickets, a Brooklyn native
- Herb Turetzky, the Nets official scorer, since 1967, a former Brooklynite who lives in Queens
That's one civilian--and if he works a sneaker store he's likely a basketball fan to begin with--and three already on the "team."
The article includes one voice of caution, a Brooklynite who "remains a stalwart Knicks fan" but "seemed open to persuasion."
Read on for Norman Oder's interesting Twitter exchange with Araton.
Related content...
The New York Times, Nets, After a String of Homes, Hope to Settle Into Brooklyn
They have wandered the greater metropolitan area like dribbling migrants for 45 seasons, playing in seven different arenas, none of them in what could be called a choice professional basketball location.
Since 2004, the Nets have been lame ducks and losers in largely indifferent New Jersey, waiting through lawsuits, construction delays and the worst real estate crash in decades for the opportunity to finally unpack in New York City — their intended home at birth in 1967.
Few took them seriously, and many had good reason to believe that their characteristic bad karma would follow them to Brooklyn, if they ever made it. Lo and behold, their dream of laying roots in the mass-transit-rich Atlantic Yards is happening, and the odds that the Nets will finally find requited love have improved.
Posted by eric at July 5, 2012 11:06 AM