Pacific Park, Brooklyn
The Barclays Center is the new home arena of the National Basketball Association's Brooklyn Nets, and the NHL's New York Islanders which was purchased by a group led by principal developer Bruce Ratner with the intention of making it and the arena the centerpiece of the whole project. This brought major league professional sports to Brooklyn for the first time since the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, California after the 1957 season. The arena’s design once included an ice skating rink and a green roof. An NBA basketball team now owned primarily by Russia's second richest man Mikhail Prokhorov, the Nets began playing at the Barclays Center arena in 2012. Formerly the New Jersey Nets, the Nets re-branded themselves when they moved to the Barclays Center. Prokhorov is an avid basketball fan, and, with 80 percent ownership in the Nets, he has become the first Russian owner of a major U.S. professional sports franchise. The deal was necessary for Ratner, who was risking losing tax-exempt financing and the Barclays naming-rights deal if he did not break ground within three months' time.
History of the Brooklyn Nets
On June 27, 2013, the Nets and the Boston Celtics agreed in principle on a blockbuster trade (finalized July 12), dealing Kris Humphries, Gerald Wallace, MarShon Brooks, Keith Bogans (in a sign-and-trade), and Kris Joseph, along with three first-round draft picks (2014, 2016, 2018) and an option to swap the 2017 first-round pick, for Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Jason Terry, and DJ White. This created a starting lineup that had a combined 35 All-Star appearances, with Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, Pierce, Garnett, and Brook Lopez together forming a new NBA "superteam". The Nets also signed Alan Anderson, Shaun Livingston, All-Star Andrei Kirilenko, and first-round draft pick Mason Plumlee to add further depth to the bench. With all of its off-season moves, Brooklyn ended up with a league-high payroll of $102 million, in addition to having projected luxury tax payments totaling $86 million.