Nets Are Scorching

• Tweet
• Email
• Sharebar

• Tweet
• Email

The Nets’ plans to move to Brooklyn encountered another obstacle on Tuesday as the biggest opposition to the move, The Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn group, asked the New York Court of Appeals to review whether a state agency has demonstrated so much “bias and corruption” that its description of the proposed Barclays Center arena site cannot be accepted.  This appeal is completly seperate from the one that had judges agree in June that they will consider overturning a ruling allowing eminent domain to be used at the 22-acre site.

As Develop Don’t Destroy spokesman Daniel Goldstein told John Brennan of NorthJersey.com, “This is a completely different violation of the law.”

My take?  Well, I am no laywer or judge so I can’t tell you if these appeals have any legal standing or not, but it seems like Develop Don’t Destroy’s strategy is to throw as many appeals as they can at them hoping to delay the building as long as possible.  This is because Nets officials have indicated that bonds backing most of the $850 million in construction costs of Barclays Center must be sold by the end of the year, with a groundbreaking required within the same time frame.

What that means is that if ground isn’t broken by December 31st, the Nets won’t be able to use the $850 million in bonds they aquired, and the project will pretty much be shot.  This is why people who claim that free-agents won’t sign with us because of the uncertainty of where we are playing are way off.  We should know by December 31st where the Nets will be playing in the future, and the more this project gets delayed by appeals, the more it is looking like this team will be staying in New Jersey…or at least not in Brooklyn.