Nets principal owner Bruce Ratner on Wednesday trumpeted the signing of a letter of intent with Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, who would obtain 80 percent ownership of the team.

But two major hurdles remain before the Nets leave the Meadowlands for a new Brooklyn home that would be part of a multibillion-dollar Atlantic Yards project: a pending court case, and the National Basketball Association's extensive ownership vetting process that will look into the background of a 44-year-old bachelor, who was described in Fortune magazine last year as "perhaps the wildest child of the [Russian] oligarch set."