Outlook Not Good for New Tri-State Arenas

If there's any buzz surrounding the Nets these days--that is, other than the possibility of losing Jason Kidd--it's their Jay-Z-backed move to Brooklyn. But as George Vecsey writes in The New York Times, that's "not such a slam dunk after all":

The ownership is still talking of moving into an arena at the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, but shovels are not in the ground, and the planned opening at the start of the 2009-10 season has now been pushed back sometime into that season.

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The Nets could always detour to the new Prudential Center in downtown Newark, with its potential for an urban renaissance of live human beings on foot seeking out restaurants and transit.

The Knicks are also rumored to be after a new home. Vecsey has them piggybacking on the new Penn Station that's currently in the works. However, given the state of the Knicks and MSG, it's doubtful that any respectable operation wants anything to do with them. In fact, that might be the real fallout from the whole MSG Legal Disaster: Even if wins can clean up the image in the mind of fans and journalists, the corporate world might be a little harder to reprogram.