July 24, 2003

Opus got rickets from Nets!

A quick lesson in how news stories get started: an unsourced Bloomberg News story in June reports that the New Jersey Nets are "considering several sites in New York" if Newark fails to come up with money for a proposed $355 million arena. (Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz tells Bloomberg he will "do somersaults" to bring an NBA team to his borough.) A month later, real estate developers Forest City Ratner tell the Newark Star-Ledger that they would like to build a $500 million basketball arena near Brooklyn's Atlantic Terminal. The next day, the New York Daily News reports excitedly that "Brooklyn is in play to become the new home for the New Jersey Nets," quoting Marty-Mark as enthusing: "As a boy, I cried when the Dodgers left in 1957. I'm looking forward to shedding tears of joy when the NBA comes to Brooklyn." There's still zero indication that the Nets would consider such a move, except as leverage to extort more money from Newark - for starters, New York City is even more cash-strapped than New Jersey - but at this rate, by next week we'll see New York journalists wondering aloud whether Ratner's dream arena should be dubbed the Nathan's Fieldhouse or the GleasonDome.