Brooklyn Nets majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov made a rare media appearance Monday night prior to the team’s home opener against Oklahoma City and maintained that he will not be giving up a majority share of the franchise.
The line of questions comes amid various recent news reports and rumors that he was looking to shop the team and “cash out” given the rising value of NBA team valuations.
“I will not give up control of the team,” Prokhorov emphatically stated a few times during the 12-minute press conference. “I’m quite happy. When someone sends me a nice offer without taking my control of the team, I think for the time being nothing is imminent but still think it’s not bad just to listen.
“The market cap of the NBA teams have skyrocketed,” Prokhorov said, and it would be foolish not to hear out various proposals. “If you look at the market cap, I think my investment like minimum five times, six times now, more times than I spent. So I had a nice get.”
Prokhorov said there have been numerous offers to buy minority shares, but would not comment on the situation of current minority owner Bruce Ratner, who is reportedly looking to sell his interest in the team.
On the court, Prokhorov maintained that the team wanted to go more in a direction of having a balance superstars, experienced players and young players, adding that the team also has to look to the future.
“You need to keep this balance all the time to have an opportunity to win every year,” he said.
In terms of his expectations for the team, Prokhorov said numerous times that sports is unpredictable, citing injuries as a major factor, so he would not say he was disappointed in the team’s second-round playoff exit last season after acquiring Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce in a 2013 draft-night trade with Boston.
Even after losing Pierce in free agency over the summer to Washington, a move in which he also attributed to trying to achieve balance between veterans and young players, Prokhorov said he had no regrets about the trade because it built the brand of the team.
“For me it was important to invest some money to make the team better and to invest some money in the Brooklyn Nets brand,” Prokhorov said. “As soon as we moved to New York [from New Jersey] it was a great leap for us, but of course you have to invest to be one of the top teams in the NBA.”
What may be perceived as a bad move for the brand was the very public split between the team and former coach Jason Kidd, who was traded to Milwaukee over the summer. Prokhorov made it very clear what he thought of the situation.
“I think there is a nice English proverb, don’t let the door hit you where the good lord split you,” Prokhorov said, before elaborating that he felt the two sides did what was best for each other and that the team now has a strong, experienced coach in Lionel Hollins.
Prokhorov said with patience and good luck he will do whatever it takes to win a championship. He was then asked about a Grantland report that the Nets’ basketball operations lost $144 million last season, and answered it like perhaps no other owner in the league could.
“It’s not a big deal,” Prokhorov said, adding that the team’s capital structure is very optimal. That could have something to do, in part, with the NBA’s new upcoming television deal.
In a macro-level perspective across the league, Prokhorov said that the franchise values increasing five and six-fold was reasonable, given what the owners expected they would get in the upcoming national television contract. The owners expected between $2.5 and $3 billion per season, he said, so it went as he expected it.
With business good across the league and the Brooklyn brand continuing to build, it seems like Prokhorov is fairly happy keeping his majority stake in the league.
I don’t know why anyone listened to ESPN or Woj in the first place.
ESPN was just quoting remarks from the Guggenheim Group (they never said they would get control of team or Barclays Center) and Woj was just quoting NBA Execs who think they know how Prokhorov thinks (lol) – In other words Trash Talk.
However, NetsDaily (SBN) had direct information from the top 3 in the organization (Proky, Dmitry & Irina) that Proky would still maintain control in any deal. In the Guggenheim deal (currently no talks), Proky would swap minority ownership in Dodgers with that of Nets as both groups would be expanding to the opposite Coast.
In a separate move, 20% Nets owner Ratner, is trying to get some cash. However, he vowed not to give up control over Barclays Center (owns 55% – Proky owns 45%).
No deal is likely ever to happen, before seeing the price that the ATL Hawks franchise sells for. If it sells for like 800 million, it could confirm that the value of Nets is around 1.7 Billion (that was figure used in Guggenheim talks).