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O'Neil was a guest on Bloomberg Television's "Market Makers" when he was asked how much he thinks the Nets will sell for.
"I think they go for $1.4, $1.5 billion," O'Neill answered. "[the exact amount] depends on what's included, what the lease looks like, how much of the arena you get. There is a whole bunch of different factors. But I would say, given the current set up, the current structure now, $1.5-ish [billion]."
When asked about why the Nets would sell for less than the $2 billion Steve Ballmer paid for the Los Angeles Clippers, O'Neil simply said that $1.5 billion is "a pretty healthy price," suggesting that the Clippers' price was more of an outlier, and then joked that he hopes the Nets sells for $3 billion.
O'Neil's target is higher than other valuations of the Nets. One valuations expert recently told Bloomberg the Nets are worth $1.3 billion. In Forbes' most recent NBA franchise valuations, the Nets value was nearly doubled from $780 million to $1.5 billion.
Either way, if the Clippers price was an outlier, it may not have been that much of an exaggeration, especially in light of the new $2.66 billion television deal the NBA signed with ESPN and Turner.
Even if the eventual sale price is at the low end of the valuations, Prokhorov is going to cash-out big time on his initial $200 million investment he made just five years ago.