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.
New Orleans Sun Belt Nets
The Nets were founded as WTT's charter franchise for Cincinnati, Ohio in 1973, by Bill DeWitt, Jr. and Brian Heekin. Within weeks of being established, and before the team ever had a name in Cincinnati, DeWitt and Heekin sold it to Cleveland radio executive Joseph Zingale who paid them the same $50,000 as the franchise fee they had paid to WTT. Zingale relocated the team to Cleveland with a plan to have it play its home matches at the Cleveland Public Hall starting with the league's inaugural 1974 season and name it the Cleveland Nets. Before the draft, Zingale spoke to Clark Graebner, a native of Cleveland, about playing for the team as well as to being its coach and general manager. Graebner insisted his wife, Carole, had to be drafted by the team as well. The Nets selected them both as a pair in the fourth round of the draft. No other WTT team objected to the Nets selecting two players with one draft choice. When Clark and Carole Graebner separated, Clark traded Carole to the Pittsburgh Triangles. The couple never divorced, and Carole Graebner died in 2008. Peaches Bartkowicz was a key women's doubles player for the 1974 Nets but quit the team during the season. Through all the drama, the Nets finished with 21 wins and 23 losses, third in the Atlantic Section and snuck into the playoffs.