FanHouse Bruce Ratner

Well, that got out of hand fast: Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov has officially purchased the New Jersey Nets. Speculation about Prokhorov has been building over the past week, despite Nets officials denying the team was up for sale. But Prokhorov and incumbent owner Bruce Ratner announced the deal today.

According to a Nets press release, Prokhorov's investment vehicle Onexim will take an 80% stake in the Nets, a 45% stake in the Barclays Center (the Nets' unbuilt Brooklyn home) and an option for a 20% stake in Ratner's Atlantic Yards development. Prokorov will pay $200 million to get into the league, and it has been reported that he will put $700 million toward the construction of Barclays.

As previously reported, Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov is indeed looking to purchase the New Jersey Nets. Prokhorov posted a LiveJournal entry detailing his weekend proposal to extant Nets shareholders. I don't speak Russian, so I'll depend on Reuters's reportage, which states Prokhorov plans to invest $700 million in the construction of the Barclays Center in Brooklyn in exchange for ownership of the team (and assumedly a big chunk of the gym).

The arena and the team go hand-in-hand -- without the Nets, the arena promoters have an extra 45 or so dates to fill up. Having an NBA team attached long-term to a building cuts down some of the risk in constructing the building in the first place. Situations we've seen in Oklahoma City and Kansas City -- where a city builds an arena to get a team, instead of having the team in place first -- are rare. So you see why Prokhorov's interest spreads beyond the development side of the Brooklyn equation. (He also happens to be a massive hoops fan.)

A report from Reuters Thursday afternoon asserted that Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov was preparing an offer in the neighborhood of $700 million to purchase a stake in the Nets franchise and help build current team owner Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, which would include a new Nets arena in Brooklyn. A Prokhorov representative vaguely confirmed that the tycoon (Russia's richest man, at assets around $9.5 billion) could possibly participate in building a sports arena in the United States.

Charles V. Bagli of the New York Times was later able to get confirmation from Nets executives that Ratner is negotiating to sell not just a major stake of the Nets franchise to Prokhorov, but a majority stake. While Prokhorov has been attached to major sports teams before, this is the closest he has reportedly come to entering an America-based league.

Ultra-famous architect Frank Gehry couldn't get his version of Brooklyn's future NBA arena built due to an incredible pricetag, but Bruce Ratner didn't give up. He just got cheaper. The result -- a new, more modest design for the planned Barclays Center -- is what you see above. (See more at Curbed.)

Artist renderings always spread eyes wide, but there's a particularly dark backdrop here: within the next few months, courts will decide whether Barclays can be built, and financiers will decide whether to fund the project. All the while, the Nets may be losing $30 million a year, with every season in East Rutherford sucking the life out of the franchise's ledger.

Orlando certainly got the best player (Vince Carter) in its deal with New Jersey today, and new Magician Ryan Anderson is a real catch, too. But beyond stellar youngster Courtney Lee, serviceable big man Tony Battie and solid point guard Rafer Alston, the Nets got another big asset: tons of cap space.

New Jersey will only save about $1 million in payroll for the 2009-10 season. But Carter is the only player in the deal with a contract extending into the 2010-11. (There are cheap team options on both Anderson and Lee. Cheap, as in $1.3 million.) With this trade, the Nets now have less than $20 million committed for the 2010-11, giving the team some $40 million to offer up to multiple free agents, or to use in trades. Yes, the Nets can pull two max players in the vaunted summer of 2010.

Newark and the Nets have an uneasy relationship right now. The Nets, waiting for Brooklyn, play in the contemptible IZOD Center, a cavernous, inconveniently located mess, up in East Rutherford. Newark has a shiny new gym, the Prudential Center, home of the Devils and (occasionally) the JoBros. Newark would like the Nets to spend some time at Prudential until Atlantic Yards in the BK is ready. The Nets don't like that idea.

As such, the folks in Newark -- particularly mayor Cory Booker -- have fired cannonballs at Bruce Ratner and the Nets franchise, pushing the "Brooklyn ain't happening, so move to Newark!" storyline hard. Booker turned up the dial quite a bit this week by publicly predicting Ratner will be putting the Nets up for sale soon.

The short answer: no ... or at least, not yet.

Just days after learning that Nets owner Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards development (which includes the Barclays Center, ostensibly the Nets' future arena) in Brooklyn might be dying comes word that the team is negotiating to play three exhibition games next October at Newark's Prudential Center, the shiny new arena that's also home to the New Jersey Devils.

On the surface, big deal, right? Teams play out-of-market exhibition games all the time -- it's a good way to expand regional interest in the team. But if you connect the dots, those three games might represent something bigger.