Free Republic

MILWAUKEE — The Nets having to watch the Bucks get the championship rings they thought should’ve been theirs was a slap in the face. What Milwaukee did to them after that was a punch in the mouth. Brooklyn got blitzed right out of the gate Tuesday against uber-physical Milwaukee, falling into a huge hole and dropping their nationally televised season opener 127-104 in a raucous Fiserv Forum. The sellout crowd of 17,341 came for the ring ceremony, and stayed to watch the Nets get their collective bells rung. The Nets had lost all five of their trips to Milwaukee last...

Bruce Ratner is a New York real estate developer and owner of the New Jersey Nets of the National Basketball Association. For five years, he’s been trying to move the team to a new arena in Brooklyn that he hopes to build, relying on New York’s powers of eminent domain to move hundreds of homeowners and businessmen out of their quarters. The Brooklyn arena project, known as Atlantic Yards, is on life support. It is only being kept alive by an investment of Russia’s richest man, Mikhail Prokhorov, who is reportedly worth more than $13 billion. He is investing $200...

Eminent Domain: Four years after the Supreme Court told a Connecticut homeowner that no one's house is safe from developers, Brooklyn homeowners may lose their homes to a pro basketball team. On June 3, 2005, by a 5-4 margin, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively repealed the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, deciding that your constitutional right to be secure in your home didn't matter if your state or community decided your property could produce more revenue as a shopping mall or condominium development. Pfizer coveted Susette Kelo's working-class neighborhood for an office park and condominium complex. The city fathers...

(CHICAGO, IL) Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. today said he was dismayed over the dismissal of New Jersey Nets coach Byron Scott. “To fire the winningest coach in the history of the team, a coach who has led them to two conference titles, seems absurd,” Jackson said. “But, this is a business, and Byron knew the risks. The fact that the Nets wouldn’t give him a contract extension was a warning sign. Hopefully, he will bounce back next year with another team. He certainly deserves it.” Jackson said he had followed Scott’s career since he was in college. “This was...

<p>EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) -- New Jersey Nets center Alonzo Mourning is leaving basketball again because the kidney disease he's had for three years is worsening and he needs a transplant.</p> <p>The team said Mourning needs a transplant "in the near future" and that a nationwide search is under way for a prospective donor.</p>

Free-agent center Alonzo Mourning plans to sign with the New Jersey Nets, apparently paving the way for Jason Kidd to re-sign in New Jersey, a league source who spoke with Mourning's agent Thursday night told Insider's Chad Ford. Mourning could announce as early as today that he'll sign a 4-year, $20 million contract with the Nets. He can't officially sign with the Nets until next Wednesday.

W hy do white folks bother watching the NBA? The obvious reason, is that the league features the world’s best basketball players. And yet, the NBA is also the most public example of institutionalized racism in America. Black folks wouldn’t watch the NBA, if the contemporary roles of black and white players were reversed. To get in the right mind-set, consider a Stepanfetchit Film Festival – all the movies Stepanfetchit ever appeared in, playing his stupid, servile black stereotype. Why, black folks would have the festival shut down, before the first movie was shown! (Stepanfetchit was the performing name of...

Article argues that NBA Commissioner David Stern wanted so much for the Los Angeles Lakers to extend their two-consecutive NBA championships to a "threepeat," that he fixed the Western Conference Finals against the Sacramento Kings.