Wow: Ratner's investment banker, marketing 20% sale of team, thinks Brooklyn Nets worth $1 billion

Remember how Forbes estimated the Nets were worth $780 million? Maybe that was modest.

Brooklyn Nets valued at $1 billion: Highest price ever set for NBA team, reports Sports Business Journal (as noted by NetsDaily):

While a billion-dollar figure speculatively swirls around a possible Los Angeles Clippers sale, an investment bank is now in the market with a $1 billion valuation on the Brooklyn Nets.
Forest City Enterprises, the real estate developer that controls 20 percent of the Nets, is shopping its stake in the franchise and has valued the team at the $1 billion figure.
That mark is far and away the highest price ever set for an NBA team... A surging media-rights fee landscape, extended labor peace and a growing international business are combining to fuel a perfect storm for NBA franchise prices, sending them into the same vicinity as those enjoyed in the NFL.

Sports Business Journal notes some "caution flags," including the Nets' spending--led by principal owner Mikhail Prokhorov-above the NBA’s salary cap, which leads to "a huge luxury tax payment" and a loss in revenues.

SBJ clarifies that Forest City's most recent $2.8 million loss over 11 months means a team loss of $23.33 million, because Forest City actually owns just 12 percent. (The other 8 percent Forest City controls is owned by limited partners.)

SBJ notes that the minority buyer could be positioned to own the whole team "if Prokhorov is ever forced to sell because of the geopolitical issues surrounding Russia’s relationship with the United States."