CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Nets, Monday’s speed bump in New Orleans aside, have been on cruise control over the last few months, emerging from the turbulent opening two months of the season to get back on solid footing in the Eastern Conference playoff picture.
But while the team has stabilized under the leadership of first-year coach Jason Kidd, events happening thousands of miles away on another continent have led some to wonder if there could be an impact on the team’s Russian billionaire owner, Mikhail Prokhorov.
The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine over Crimea has resulted in sanctions being levied against individuals at the top of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government. Those thoughts were again brought to the forefront of people’s minds Monday, when Prokhorov’s comments in Moscow that he’s still considering transferring the Nets from a company that’s based in the United States to one that’s based in Russia made it back here.
That led to the NBA issuing a statement Monday saying the league hadn’t received an official application from the Nets to make such a change. Prokhorov’s ONEXIM Sports and Entertainment, which oversees the Nets, released a statement of its own Tuesday afternoon addressing the situation.
“Preliminary discussions with the NBA were held in spring 2013 and, at that time, the League indicated its willingness to work with us in the event we needed to reregister the ownership vehicle of the Nets as a Russian entity to comply with the Russian law regarding candidates for political office,” Onexim said in a statement released by the Nets. “This is a long process which may or may not come to fruition and nothing is imminent. Of course, no steps in this direction could or would be taken without the full knowledge and approval of the NBA.”
The idea of transferring the Nets from a U.S. based company to one based in Russia isn’t a new one, however, and had nothing to do with the ongoing issues involving the fallout over Russia’s advances into Crimea.
Prokhorov first brought it up last summer, when he conemplated becoming a candidate to be mayor of Moscow. Russian voting laws don’t allow for any candidate for political office in Russia to own overseas assets.
There also isn’t an indication Prokhorov himself is in danger of being hit with any sanctions. He’s not a member of Putin’s government, and actually ran against Putin in the last round of presidential elections.
“I’ll leave that to [President] Obama and [President] Putin to figure out,” general manager Billy King said while discussing the team with the media Friday. “I follow politics, I love politics, but I don’t know anything about who we are putting sanctions on, or who we’re not.”