By Sam Riches
The New Yorker - October 7, 2013
Mikhail Prokhorov, a Russian businessman who is one of the richest
people in the world, is also one of the first non-Americans to own an
N.B.A. team. Along with the Brooklyn Nets, he owns almost half of the
Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where the Nets play their home games. This
season, his roster is worth approximately a hundred and eighty million dollars,
according to ESPN, making it the most expensive N.B.A. team ever
assembled. Notably, that team includes several international
players—Mirza Teletovic, of Bosnia; Tornike Shengelia, of Georgia; and
Andrei Kirilenko, of Russia.
The amount paid for the Nets roster exceeds an
N.B.A. cap by such a wide margin that Prokhorov will be required to pay
an eighty-seven-million-dollar luxury-tax bill to the N.B.A., ESPN
reports. Prokhorov’s willingness to pay that bill illustrates his desire
to make the Nets a championship-calibre team with international appeal.
The Nets’ C.E.O., Brett Yormark, recently travelled to China and
Russia to meet with local executives. (“We want to be the home N.B.A.
team in Beijing,” he told
Bloomberg TV. “I just got back from Moscow yesterday, and we want to be
the home N.B.A. team in Russia.”) In August, Brook Lopez, the Nets’
starting center, took part in coaching clinics in Singapore. Kevin
Garnett, a forward, travelled to China last month to promote a signature
shoe with a Chinese sportswear company.
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