Free Republic

Steve Nash was named the new head coach of the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday morning. The announcement was unexpected, to say the least. Nash, 46, has no head coaching experience. This prompted many to wonder if Brooklyn’s decision to immediately put him at the helm of a championship contender featuring Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving was race-related. ESPN NBA insider Stephen A. Smith literally made that case during Thursday’s episode of First Take. “This is one of the toughest positions I’ve ever had to take,” Smith said on the air. “Ladies and gentlemen, there’s no way around this. This is...

Stephen A. Smith, ESPN’s controversial talking head and hot take artist, of course had an opinion on the Nets’ hiring of Steve Nash, the Hall of Fame point guard. Smith didn’t like it, not because of Nash’s lack of experience, but because he felt it was an instance of “white privilege” since more experienced black coaches such as Tyronn Lue and Mark Jackson were available. “This is one of the toughest positions I’ve ever had to take,” Smith said on the air. “Ladies and gentlemen, there’s no way around this. This is white privilege. This does not happen for a...

Superstar Kevin Durant was among four members of the Brooklyn Nets who tested positive for the coronavirus, the superstar told The Athletic. The team announced Tuesday that multiple players were diagnosed with the deadly virus, without disclosing names. “Of the four, one player is exhibiting symptoms while three are asymptomatic,” the team added in a statement. “All four players are presently isolated and under the care of team physicians.”

The Chinese government asked the N.B.A. to fire a team executive who posted on social media in support of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, the league’s commissioner, Adam Silver, said on Thursday in his first public appearance in the United States since returning from a contentious trip to Asia. “We said there’s no chance that’s happening,” Silver said. “There’s no chance we’ll even discipline him.” The executive, Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, set off the international firestorm with a Twitter post using a slogan used by the protesters in Hong Kong, just as the league was...

Free-agent All-NBA star Kevin Durant plans to sign a four-year, $164 million contract to play for the Brooklyn Nets, he confirmed Sunday. Durant will join free agents Kyrie Irving and DeAndre Jordan, who also plan to sign with the franchise. Players can officially sign their contracts starting Saturday. Irving will sign for four years and $141 million, league sources said, while Jordan has agreed to a four-year, $40 million deal, Excel Sports agent Jeff Schwartz told ESPN. Veteran guard Garrett Temple has also agreed to a two-year, $10 million deal with Brooklyn, agent Mark Bartelstein told ESPN. The deals mark...

The Russian billionaire who owns the Brooklyn Nets has decided to sell the NBA team amid concerns about its financial losses and performance on court, according to reports. Mikhail Prokhorov, 49, has apparently retained investment adviser Evercore Partners to sell his share of the basketball franchise, which he bought for a staggering $223million in May 2010. The businessman, who is worth an estimated $11.1billion, currently holds 80 per cent of the Nets, as well as 45 per cent of the Barclays Center, the club's two-and-a-half-year-old arena in New York. Of these, only the team is for sale, two sources close...

Jay-Z causes controversy by wearing gaudy medallion of 'Five Percent Nation' group who believe whites are 'wicked and weak' • The Brooklyn-born rapper wore a medallion representing the Five Percent Nation at a Nets game last week • One of the main tenets of the Nation of Islam offshoot is that white people are 'weak and wicked' and that black men hold the power of God • When asked if the medallion holds any importance to him, Jay-Z said: 'A little bit' • Jay-Z was spotted wearing the nation's symbol last year while giving radio interviews for his new album,...

Open up the Honey Nut cheerios boxes and sprinkle a trail from Flatbush Avenue to the corner of 34th and Seventh, because now we get to find out whether the town is big enough for Carmelo Anthony ... and Kevin Garnett. Here comes KG, The Big Ticket who makes the Brooklyn Nets a big ticket, and here comes Paul Pierce, The Truth, with him (along with Jason Terry), and here come the $100 Million Nets, coming to try to steal the town from Melo and the Knicks, coming for everyone. And here comes a City Game rivalry that will make...

Jason Kidd surprised some when he retired from the Knicks with two years and $6 million left on his contract. But now, the 19-year NBA player will be the new head coach of the Brooklyn Nets. It turns out, Kidd will make more money coaching the Nets. In addition, the NBA says Kidd can play for the Nets if he wants and if the Nets need a player. Kidd's contract with the Nets is 4-years, $10.5 million with $7.5 million guaranteed according to Peter Vecsey. NBA sources also told Marc Berman of the New York Post that Kidd is free...

Coach of the month in November, out of a job by New Year's. The Brooklyn Nets have elevated expectations this season, and a .500 record wasn't good enough. Coach Avery Johnson was fired Thursday, his team having lost 10 of 13 games after a strong start to its first season in Brooklyn. "We don't have the same fire now than we did when we were 11-4," general manager Billy King said at a news conference in East Rutherford, N.J. "I tried to talk to Avery about it and we just can't figure it out. The same pattern kept on happening."...

Like it or not, there's one thing all Knicks fans agree on: Their team just overpaid for Carmelo Anthony. Some think it was still worth it, others think it wasn't. Most agree that GM Donnie Walsh was embarrassed by his own owner, and that Isiah Thomas (the worst GM in the team's history) is the one who made the deal what it was. The Knicks are both relevant and in total chaos at the same time. That leaves them right where Mikhail Prokhorov wants them. Both New York tabloids agree that the New Jersey Nets blew it by not landing...

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) -- The daughter of a Russian diplomat was hired Thursday as president of the company that will oversee the New Jersey Nets. Mikhail Prokhorov's Onexim Group announced that Irina Pavlova will be the team owner's representative in the New York area. Pavlova has extensive experience in business and finance. She earned an MBA from Stanford, worked as a financial analyst with Prudential Investment Corp. and became Russia's first employee for Google. She lived in Moscow and Washington as a child. Prokhorov, a billionaire who is Russia's richest man, has promised to revive the last-place Nets. His...

One of my favorite scenes in the Gospel story comes early when Jesus calls the disciples. To understand the calling, you need to understand their world. The disciples were fishermen, which meant that they had tried other routes and no one had picked them. They could not be rabbis, scholars, lawyers, or even a follower of a rabbi. They had not gotten picked, they were overlooked, and so they went fishing. It was not a powerful or popular job; it was a job for misfits and those who the world did not pick. It’s the job for those picked last...

SOMERVILLE, N.J. — Attorneys for Jayson Williams say the retired NBA star's convictions related to a fatal shooting should be thrown out because those who prosecuted him were racially biased. Williams was convicted of four counts of covering up the shooting of a hired driver at his central New Jersey mansion more than seven years ago.

The relentlessly sanctimonious Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now may not deserve its carefully cultivated image as a defender of the poor. That's because the group has become the leading cheerleader for a controversial real estate development that is slated to use eminent domain to remove the poor people it claims to represent. ACORN, which has long prided itself on fighting the so-called gentrification of neighborhoods as rising property values force the poor to move, has also taken money from the project's developer and signed a binding agreement forcing it to stand behind the project no matter what. In...

Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y.), President Obama’s choice to be Secretary of the Army, has secured more than $44 million in earmarks for New York-based companies and a large Army base in his district. McHugh, formerly the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, gave up his post in early June when Obama picked him to be the Army’s civilian leader. McHugh, who has yet to be confirmed, is still a member of Congress.

Jayson Williams was stunned with a Taser by police in his swank hotel suite Monday after the reportedly suicidal ex-NBA star resisted attempts by officers to take him to a hospital. Police were called to the hotel in lower Manhattan's Battery Park City around 4 a.m. when a female friend reported the former New Jersey Nets player was acting suicidal. When officers arrived, the 6-foot-10, 325-pound Williams appeared drunk and agitated, police said. There were empty bottles of prescription drugs strewn around his disheveled hotel suite and several suicide notes. Officers with the Emergency Services Unit, an elite team trained...

Here's one genuinely welcome casualty of the Bush-Obama recession. Gothamist brings word that Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards project is floundering: Starchitect Frank Gehry really stepped in it during a recent interview with industry journal The Architect's Newspaper, admitting he doesn't think developer Bruce Ratner's $4.2 billion plan to build a Nets basketball arena, office towers and thousands of apartments in Brooklyn will become a reality. In an interview on the occasion of his 80th birthday, Gehry dropped the bombshell when asked about unrealized commissions he most wishes had been built: "The Corcoran Gallery in DC, the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn—I...

One of the most important Constitutional questions in the history of our Republic might be decided over a few acres of rat infested railroad yards in Brooklyn and a handful of doughty home owners who like living nearby. The question is whether the Constitution permits a developer to seize the property of the few residents continuing to live in the footprint of the proposed Atlantic Yards development near downtown Brooklyn. The question is now pending before the Supreme Court of the United States because, as our Joseph Goldstein reported yesterday at Page 1, more than a dozen plaintiffs, including three...

Mr Bush handed out bed nets on his visit to Arusha President George W Bush has said the US will help provide 5.2 million mosquito nets as part of a broader campaign to tackle malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.Mr Bush announced the plan during a visit to a hospital in Arusha, Tanzania, where he is on the second leg of a tour of five African countries. He said it would provide free nets for every Tanzanian child aged one to five. Malaria is the main cause of death for children in Africa, killing a child every 30 seconds, the UN...