Nets following potential sale, focused on season

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP)—No one on the New Jersey Nets was preoccupied Tuesday with what might happen next season if Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov buys the team and moves it to Brooklyn.

The Nets would rather make the playoffs this year, no matter who is signing their checks.

Not much is expected of the youthful Nets as they open training camp. This will be a season to survive, with five players in the final year of their contracts and roughly six others facing a team option for next season.

Making the Eastern Conference playoffs for the first time in three years would be a surprise.

“We don’t have a lot of expectations on us,” said Devin Harris(notes), the point guard and the Nets’ only All Star. “We do have guys with chips on their shoulders, guys traded from finals teams who have something to prove and guys in the final years of contracts trying to play their way into better deals. We have a lot of motivations, and we can use that to our advantage.”