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.
Markel Brown
On June 26, 2014, Brown was selected with the 44th overall pick in the 2014 NBA draft by the Minnesota Timberwolves. He was later traded to the Brooklyn Nets on draft night. He joined the Nets for the 2014 NBA Summer League, and signed with the team on July 23. He played in just seven games for the Nets over the first two months of the 2014–15 season. On January 1, 2015, using the flexible assignment rule, the Nets assigned Brown to the Maine Red Claws, the D-League affiliate of the Boston Celtics. On January 8, he was recalled by the Nets. In his first career start on February 23 against the Denver Nuggets, Brown played 45 minutes of action and recorded a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds as he helped the Nets defeat the Nuggets, 110–82. On March 29, he scored a career-high 17 points in a 107–99 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. To finish the regular season, Brown played in 40 games and started in 29 of them. After starting in the Nets' first playoff game, he managed just one more playoff appearance, in Game 6 of their series against the Atlanta Hawks, a series the Nets lost 4–2.