Russian Dude Will Build Arena, Buy Nets, Annex New Jersey

Russian basketboligarch Mikhail Prokhorov has gone from maybe chipping in a few dollars to build a new arena for the Nets to offering to take over the whole dang team—and maybe the entire NBA while he's at it. The *****-loving nickel salesman initially laughed off the rumors that he was being courted to invest in the soon-to-be Brooklyn Nets, but then admitted that he had indeed been approached to become a "shareholder" of the team. He did have a counter-proposal, however. It was: "Why don't you just give me all the shares and get out of my way?" Oh, and he posted the offer on this blog. Eat your heart out, Mark Cuban! For our group, participation in such a complex project undoubtedly is interesting only in the event that NBA technology can be used for the systematic development of basketball in Russia. ... We need to change the model of basketball development in Russia with the aid of super modern systems of training sportsmen (this is the innovat...