Prospective Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov was the subject of a lengthy interview and profile on "60 Minutes" Sunday night. It's the first time most basketball fans have gotten a long look at the Russian oligarch, whose background, unusual for the NBA, has given him an air of mystery and danger. That air was apparent when Steve Kroft asked David Stern if the NBA commissioner considered Prokhorov "a man of character."
That question was all about the phrasing, because it allowed Stern to say that investigations turned up no reason why Prokhorov shouldn't be able to buy into the league and it allowed Kroft to get the visual of an uncomfortable man trying to avoid discussing character. Why such issues should matter in a league that counts racist slumlord Donald Sterling and other character-challenged men as owners is another question, but it was pretty clear that Stern didn't want to delve into that line of questioning.
There were other interesting moments in the interview, although nothing that qualified as jaw-dropping. Prokhorov admitted paying bribes in the mid-90's because doing business in Russia was like doing business in the Wild West, called his arrest for cavorting with prostitutes a "police misunderstanding," and even bragged about how fun it was to spend some time in jail. That trip to jail caused his partners in the mining business to force him out, a move that came just before the economic meltdown and left Prokhorov with much more money than anyone else involved in the business.
The Nets could use that kind of luck and they could certainly use the kind of brains and hard work that made Prokhorov a successful businessman before the Iron Curtain even fell. Prokhorov is also the subject of a profile in Bloomberg Markets Magazine, in which he returns to a laundromat he used to stone wash jeans two decades ago. He made 14 rubles for every one he spent in that venture and eventually employed 300 people in a business he was running while still in school.
His career has ranged all over the financial world since then and he's been wildly successful at every stop, something that should make Nets fans quite happy that he's taking over the reins of a franchise that has only occasionally been successful in their many stops.
The dual profiles do a lot to clean up the cartoon supervillain vibe that earlier discussions of Prokhorov have given off, especially when the incoming owner said that he was buying the Nets to benefit Russian basketball.
Prokhorov now tells Richard Sandomir of the New York Times that while he plans to bring in some Russian executives, no one knows as much as Rod Thorn and Brett Yormark -- the Nets G.M. and CEO -- so he's not planning to clear out the whole franchise just for the sake of it.
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He also made it clear that he wasn't looking to buy the Nets when he first looked into an NBA investment. He wanted the Knicks, who weren't for sale, and then moved on to the Brooklyn-bound Nets. We've got no idea how these dueling rebuilding efforts will play out over the next few years, but we'll certainly be keeping a close watch and have a pretty good feeling about which horse we'd back in a race if all else was equal.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com.
