Dave D’Alessandro of the Newark Star-Ledger reports:
Rod Thorn’s demise has been greatly exaggerated — if not invented entirely, by some NBA executives with vivid imaginations and agendas that remain hard to discern.
That much was made clear by the Nets president’s meeting in Dallas on Sunday with two Onexim executives, who represented the only obstacle between Thorn heading north to Vancouver to meet with Mikhail Prokhorov for a series of appointments Monday and Tuesday.
And the Russian businessman, whose purchase of the Nets is pending league approval, “is not bringing the guy all the way to British Columbia just to fire him,” according to one person familiar with content and tone of the meeting, who required anonymity to speak candidly. “They love Rod.”
The meeting was held by Onexim CEO Dmitry Razumov and deputy CEO Christophe Charlier, who spoke enthusiastically with Thorn and Nets CEO Brett Yormark at length about the team’s future.