The oligarch who blew up the NBA salary cap is unrepentant, even lighthearted about his monetary mischief. Mikhail Prokhorov says he wasn’t about to wait in line for a championship, and that he doesn’t mind spending $100 million in salaries and another $80 million in luxury taxes next season if that’s what it takes.
“They’re still counting money in back office,” Prokhorov said Thursday, straight off a flight from Europe to greet Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry in Brooklyn. “I am hoping check doesn’t bounce. It’s not (my) way to wait 10 years for championship.”
He is, in other words, a fan’s dream owner, an easy newspaper column, and something of a nightmare for James Dolan and every other league executive. Prokhorov is the closest thing we have around here to the late George Steinbrenner, now that the Yanks have turned into skinflints. Only he’s far richer, with an estimated worth of $13.5 billion. And with Prokhorov, we get only good humor without the nasty stuff, because the skeletons in the closet are 5,000 miles from New York.
What happens in Moscow, stays in Moscow, or on his private jet. It won’t hurt the Nets’ interior defense.
Prokhorov is giving a cast of canny, veteran All-Stars many monetary units to topple Miami, Chicago, Indiana and the Knicks. Especially the Knicks. He says this is a good business investment, because the value of the franchise has tripled since he purchased it in 2010. Nonetheless, his spending spree has left the NBA in consumer shock. It also has led to some whispers about possible under-the-table deals with Andrei Kirilenko, another addition who took a salary cut to join the Nets.
“Stereotypes are very hard to break. I respect all NBA rules,” Prokhorov said. “In NBA, money is important, but it can’t buy championships.”
His general manager, Billy King, insists he wasn’t simply given a blank check, and that he needed to justify these acquisitions to Prokhorov as good basketball decisions. Prokhorov had told King last season he didn’t expect to win a championship yet, because there was still a large hole at power forward. “Still work to do,” Prokhorov said to King, but with specific targets such as Garnett in mind.
“It wasn’t just, ‘Here’s a credit card, go spend,’ ” King said.
As far as the rumors of secret payments to Kirilenko, King says, “If (Prokhorov) wasn’t Russian, and (Kirilenko) wasn’t a Russian player, they wouldn’t be happening.”
In any case, what we have at Barclays Center is one of the great basketball experiments of our time. King basically has merged two Atlantic Division teams, the Nets and Celtics, and hopes they meld under a rookie coach, Jason Kidd.
Pierce, like everybody else who doesn’t live in Brooklyn, immediately complained Thursday about his new commuting times. If he can stay fresh, despite those drives between the practice site at East Rutherford and the games on Atlantic Ave., he may still be one of the game’s most reliable clutch performers. Garnett spoke about sacrifice and defense.
Defense always sounds like a good idea. If all this doesn’t work, in theory, King can blow up the roster in two years’ time and start all over again. But Prokhorov, 48, won’t and can’t wait that long. He promised three years ago the Nets would win a championship within five seasons, or else he’d get married, which is something he definitely doesn’t want to do. He has a renowned playboy reputation to protect.
“I’m not man of procedure, I’m man of results,” Prokhorov said. “I have two years left. No process is underway looking for wife, this is for sure. When I bought the team, I promised to build championship contender. I’ve done what I can and now it’s high time for team to do the rest.”
Prokhorov said he thoroughly endorsed Kidd as the man to lead this conglomerate on the court.
“He is not rookie coach, he’s superstar coach,” Prokhorov said. “There are players who display the ability to coach when playing. Jason Kidd was that kind of player.”
Prokhorov looked at all the TV cameras, at the big fuss inside Barclays Center. He smiled.
“I want to congratulate James Dolan,” Prokhorov said. “He is watching us for the time being.”
Everybody is watching, wondering how this laboratory test works. Can two good basketball rosters, merged, become one great one? Can Pierce and Garnett hold together for another full season?
Would-be brides are waiting in the wings.
