Mikhail Prokhorov has been the Brooklyn Nets majority owner since 2011, and he’s now open to selling his stake in the franchise.
Mikhail Prokhorov hasn’t gained any traction in his race to sell a minority stake in the Brooklyn Nets, leading him to offer up a bigger piece of the pie.
According to Josh Kosman and Brian Lewis of the New York Post, the decision comes on the heels of Leslie Alexander putting the Houston Rockets up for sale.
The source close to the Post said that “as word gets out about the new Nets process, some of the Rockets interest may spill over.” To an NBA fan, that may not be the case, but a business person looks at it differently. Houston has a superstar in James Harden and is going to be one of the premier teams in the NBA in the immediate future.
Brooklyn, on the other hand, has a growing Chinese fan base, and the Post noted that “a lot of Chinese money will look directly at Houston,” and that’s thanks to Yao Ming and the enormous impact he had on the league. Now it makes sense as to why the Nets and Rockets are mentioned side-by-side.
Forbes valued the Nets at $1.8 billion this past February, placing them seventh on the list, right behind the Los Angeles Clippers. Prokhorov is looking for roughly $2 billion, the same price the Rockets are currently on the market for.
Since the move to Brooklyn for the 2012-13 season, the Nets haven’t reached the lofty championship aspirations they wanted to. However, they made the playoffs three straight years from 2013-2015, but it came at the expense of their future.
Billy King traded a litany of assets for aging stars, and the Nets have won just 41 total games over the past two seasons. However, things are looking up with Sean Marks as the general manager and the franchise, from a basketball standpoint, is on the right track with their rebuild.