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| Jay-Z much-discusses minor ownership tenure with the Nets is now over, as he sold his share in the team in order to pursue his burgeoning sports agency |
I'm trying to catch up with the constant stream of Brooklyn Nets news after the Jewish holiday (Rosh Hashanah) last week and a more-than-busy weekend, so I apologize for the lack of activity on the site. As the preseason and regular season approach, BB will be as active and updated as you guys have been accustomed to, so the recent departure from that is probably a surprise and my fault alone. But don't worry, it won't be like that for long. Here are your Nets links:
As was expected, Jay-Z, former minority owner of the Brooklyn Nets, sold his stake in the team earlier in the week (roughly .16% of the organization). But the main recipient of the rap mogul's former shares was a huge surprise: Nets coach Jason Kidd. Spitting Beyonce's husband's part of the team with a different minority investor, Kidd has made the odd and relatively rare decision to be an owner-coach, which could make for a sticky situation down the road should GM Billy King want to fire the former point guard.
Even before the 2013-14 NBA season has begun, a new Nets assistant coach is already winning games and having success. That coach, Joe Prunty, hired this summer by Brooklyn, is the head coach of the Great Britain national basketball team, which stunned spectators at the FIBA European Basketball Championship, commonly known as EuroBasket, by making a rapid comeback to upset the Israeli national team by a 75-71 score in overtime. EuroBasket, an Olympic-style tournament of national basketball teams throughout Europe, is normally a tournament dominated by basketball-craxed Israel, which entered this year's contest as a heavyweight of sorts. But even though Great Britain was missing stars LUol Deng and Ben Gordon, Nets assistant Prunty led them to victory.
Finally, we note a former Nets great and Brooklyn native who was inducted into the James Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Sunday. Bernard King, who played 15 NBA seasons, four of which were with the Nets, grew up in the shadow of what is now the Barclays Center, played for the University of Tennessee, and moved on to the NBA, where he was the 7th overall pick of the Nets in the 1977 draft. King was inducted along with current Louisville Cardinals, and former Knicks and Celtics, coach Rick Pitino, a fellow NYC native; point guard Gary Payton; WNBA star Dawn Staley, and a host of other basketball greats, both men and women.
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