The Brooklyn Nets were once the talk of the NBA as they were one of the main title contenders after fielding a franchise led by Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden. At the center of that era was current owner Joe Tsai, someone who became the majority owner of the team in 2021, but almost didn’t get to that point.
In a recent article by Brian Lewis and Josh Kosman of the New York Post, Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca also became co-owner of the Nets along with Tsai. As Lewis and Kosman put it, one of the other angles in this reporting is what could have been if the Nets had a different ownership structure after Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov sold the team.
“I was honored to be contacted by the Nets in 2017 to look at the club,” Pagliuca said. “But, (I) decided after a review that my heart was with the Celtics and subsequently invested more capital in the Celtics franchise and also in the Italian Serie A soccer team Atalanta.”
One of the facts that makes Pagliuca’s potential ownership of the Nets interesting is that he was born and raised in the tri-state area. Pagliuca has been co-owner of the Celtics since 2002 and while there was a time that he could have had an ownership stake in his hometown team, so to speak, it seems that he doesn’t regret maintaining his ownership in the Celtics and in the Atalanta soccer team.
From the outside looking in, no one can blame Pagliuca for his decision to keep his ownership stake in the Celtics as they went on to win their 17th championship in 2008 and are on the brink of winning their 18th championship on Monday as they take on the Dallas Mavericks in Game 5 of the NBA Finals.
It’s unclear if anything with the Nets would have changed given that Pagliuca would have been the majority owner of the Nets, but it presents another interesting what-if scenario for Nets fans to ponder.
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