- David Halbfinger writes for the NY Times about Jay-Z and his involvement as a minority owner of the Nets: "He helped design the team logos and choose the team’s stark black-and-white color scheme, and personally appealed to National Basketball Association officials to drop their objections to it (the N.B.A., according to a person with knowledge of the discussion, thought that African-American athletes did not look good on TV in black, an assertion that a league spokesman adamantly denied). He counseled arena executives on what kind of music to play during games. (“Less Jersey,” he urged, pushing niche artists like Santigold over old favorites like Bon Jovi.)"
- Also for the NY Times, Andrew Goldman interviews Nets GM Billy King where he talks about his love of soap operas and says about Kris Humphries: "We don’t need to be on TMZ; you need to be more about rebounding and playing basketball."
- Fan runs into Nets CEO Brett Yormark eating sushi. Fan gets internship. I will now be stalking Brett Yormark.
- John Schumann of NBA.com previews the international rookie class and ranks Nets import Mirza Teletovic second behind Toronto Raptor, Jonas Valanciunas.
- John Hollinger and Chad Ford of ESPN.com have the Nets ranked #14 in their annual future power rankings piece. The Nets score high in players and the Brooklyn market kills, but Ford and Hollinger still have little faith in Nets management. (ESPN Insider)
- I'm still not convinced the Magic made the right deal for Dwight Howard, but Sam Amick of SI.com provides just a little more insight into what deals the Magic may have actually been weighing.
And, in case you've missed the start of Joe Johnson week, this should catch you up:
- Everything you could ever want to know about Joe Johnson.
- Ok, so the Nets got Joe Johnson. Now, how the heck should they use him?
- The Joe Johnson Trade-off: "he predicates his game on what he knows he can do, rather than stretching the boundaries of what he can’t."
- Joe Johnson is a beastly post defender and other defensive observations.
