The pitch is feverish in Brooklyn as shovel hits ground

The ceremonial groundbreaking for the Barclays Center, the planned home of the Nets in Brooklyn, is set for Thursday afternoon, dignitaries at the ready. Civic leaders, politicians, corporate types, team officials ... grab a shovel. Smile.

The major business development, the real estate moment, the architecture -- that's one set of storylines. But there will be basketball, too. Not the actual playing of basketball, not until at least 2012-13. Until then, the Nets will be staying in New Jersey with a short move from East Rutherford to Newark.

Still, the construction site in Brooklyn becomes an important part of the NBA in about four months. Or did you think the Nets were going to try to bag free agents with the lure of Newark?

This is the basketball storyline right now because the Nets will not only have money to offer, they will be able to offer potential recruits a chance to be part of building something, and starting very soon they will be able to give a tour of an arena under construction. In New York City.

Playing in the Big Apple becomes a big part of the pitch. Now.

From Kiki Vandeweghe, the general manager and interim coach of the Nets: "I think you use everything you have. All the positives. The nice thing about Brooklyn is, it gives you instant history. It has a great tradition of sports. Obviously you are close to Manhattan. You are right there with easy access, one subway stop away. I think that all free agents, all the guys, they like to play in a full arena, an arena with that kind of ambiance. It's going to be brand new, very exciting."

And, from Kiki Vandeweghe, the former Knick, the son of a former Knick, the nephew of a former Knick: "When I was with the Knicks, we didn't play too many games that weren't sold out. We were a good team, so it was a great place to play. But you talk about any of the arenas. Chicago, for example. They're a city arena that when they were good, that was pretty special. The old Boston Garden, when they were good when I was playing. They're great now, but I remember when they had Bird and McHale and Parish and all those guys, the arena there was special. There's a lot of great arenas. It's a combination of history, it's a combination of access and excitement, and that's obviously something we feel we will have in Brooklyn."

New York is different from just any place, and that definitely includes the Meadowlands despite the short actual distance between Madison Square Garden and the Izod Center. Same metropolitan market, contrasting energy.

The Nets, right now, are potentially historically bad, but the Knicks are 22-41 and fielding a lineup of mostly placeholders while plotting the same free agent-based recovery as New Jersey. Yet:

Knicks: 19,530 per home game.

Nets: 13,131 per home game.

The new arena is supposed to pump new life into the franchise even as it puts the Nets in direct competition with the same Knicks for the New York City market. It's always been a Knicks town, even as New Jersey won back-to-back Eastern Conference titles behind Jason Kidd and Kenyon Martin. But who's to say what happens in the fall of 2012?

"It's a positive, clearly," Vandeweghe said. "I think there's a lot of excitement around this new arena and project. Basketball has always been huge in Brooklyn. It goes for any arena that is successful in the New York area. You've got to have public transportation for people to get there, which this has. There's 10 major subway lines and train lines that come into the area, and we're excited about it. There's really no bigger project right now in basketball. It garners a lot of attention, obviously, and will be very big for us."

Not just business-side big. Basketball big.

That makes the groundbreaking and last week's announcement of the move to Newark a now story, not a 2012-13 story (if construction finishes according to schedule). That makes the shovels to be used Thursday a recruiting tool, too.

So smile everyone.

Scott Howard-Cooper has covered the NBA since 1988. You can e-mail him here.

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