The Roman Abramovich of the NBA?

There was some excitement from all twenty-six or so fans of the New Jersey Nets when news broke that Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov had reached an agreement to assume controlling interest of the New Jersey Nets, making him the first non-North American NBA owner. There's a couple of ways that this could play out:

1) Prokhorov could become the ethnically-proud-to-the-extreme sports owner, making every effort to populate his team as many former Soviet republic players as possible. Naturally, the danger is that this will cloud player personnel judgment such as a horrible trade of Brook Lopez and Devin Harris to the Bulls for Martynas Andriuskevicius and Viktor Khryapa. We could be seeing a starting lineup with Andrei Kirilenko, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Linas Kleiza, Zaza Pachulia and Sarunas Jasikevicius. Great for the Russian fans in Coney Island near where the Nets will be moving, but horrible for the play-by-play announcers. Oh, also bad for the fans who would be starved for wins.

2) The hope is that Prokhorov becomes the Roman Abramovich of the NBA. For those of you who aren't soccer fans, Abramovich bought the Chelsea football club in England and proceeded to buy legions of star players with his seemingly bottomless wallet. Fed by an immense ego (or euphemistically, a passion to win), Abramovich's heavy investments (€705 million) into the club which has since won two Premier League championships and a handful of other cups. Nets fans hope that Prokhorov and his ego won't let his sports team do any worse than Abramovich's, and finds a way, despite the NBA salary cap, to spend his way to bring a championship to New Jersey... uh, Brooklyn.

For what it's worth, it is Prokhorov, not Abramovich who is the richest man in Russia. Prokhorov has a fortune of $9.5 billion with Abramovich at a measly $8.5 billion. Too bad Abramovich has the far more storied and successful sports franchise.