The New Jersey Nets appeared closer than ever to a move to Brooklyn yesterday after Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov agreed to purchase 80 percent of the team and 45 percent of a proposed arena by pouring $200 million into the venture. Prokhorov, Russia's richest man, is a 44-year-old industrialist who is worth an estimated $9.5 billion, according to Forbes magazine. He began to amass his fortune in 1993 when he acquired Noriksk Nickel, an inefficient metals operation in Siberia that he transformed into an industrial giant.
At 6-feet 7-inches tall, his real love is basketball, and he had helped turn CSKA Moscow into a European League powerhouse. This explains why such a brilliant businessman would sink $200 million into a shit-bag NBA franchise. Let's just hope for Prokhorov's sake he can sign LeBron James or Dwayne Wade next year when they enter free agency. He can obviously afford to pay them.
