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Brooklyn basketball greats including Connie Hawkins and World B. Free joined real estate developer Bruce Ratner on Tuesday to support his bid to buy the New Jersey Nets and move them across the Hudson and East rivers.
``Brooklyn Nets! Let's go!'' said Free, who grew up in the borough's Brownsville neighborhood before going on to a 13-year NBA career.
Ratner, the developer of Brooklyn's 16-acre MetroTech Center, heads one of three investment groups that filed bids last week to buy the Nets from YankeeNets, the conglomerate that owns them.
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While Ratner would move the NBA team to Brooklyn, New York Islanders owner Charles
Wang would move them to Long Island. Only developer Charles Kushner would keep
the team at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, N.J.
Tuesday's news conference at a restaurant near the site of the proposed Nets arena was long on Brooklyn pride and short on details.
``We're going to fulfill the dream of all Brooklynites and build an arena for the great champions, the Brooklyn Nets!'' said a star-struck Ratner after trading his conservative suit jacket for Free's flashier duds. Ticketmaster
Albert King, who grew up in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood and played for the Nets, added, ``I would love to be able to come across that Brooklyn Bridge, head on over here and watch a game of the Brooklyn Nets.''
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz invoked the borough's abandonment by baseball's Dodgers, who decamped for Los Angeles in 1958.
``As a 12-year-old I cried like a baby when the Brooklyn Dodgers left us for La-La-Land,'' Markowitz said. ``Now at 58 years of age I can't wait to shed tears of joy. Joy because I predict that the Brooklyn Nets will be the most successful basketball team in the NBA.''
Markowitz then mugged for photographers with Hawkins, whose sternum he barely reached.
Ratner sidestepped questions about who would pay for an arena in downtown Brooklyn. Ticketmaster
``It's premature,'' he said. ``The first thing we have to do is get the team.''
He said the arena would be designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry and would be ready in three years when the Nets' current lease runs out. Ticketmaster
A handful of arena opponents protested outside the news conference.
``Northern Brooklyn likes basketball but we don't want a stadium in our back yard!'' read a flyer from the Prospect Heights Action Coalition.