L.I. Nets in Coliseum's future

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Professional basketball is headed back to Long Island.

The Brooklyn Nets announced the birth of the Long Island Nets, a new NBA Development League (D-League) franchise who will call the renovated Nassau Coliseum home beginning in the fall of 2017.

The Nets recently unveiled their logo and uniform, which pays homage to the team’s heritage on Long Island. The logo is red, white and blue, the colors of the American Basketball Association’s New York Nets, who played at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum from 1972-76, winning two championships in 1974 and 1976. Following the completion of its extensive renovation, the new Nassau Coliseum will become the permanent home of the L.I. Nets starting with the 2017-18 season.

The team will play home games during the 2016-17 inaugural season at Barclays Center and hold practices at the recently opened HSS Training Center in Brooklyn.

The logo features the “Nets” wordmark in red script, reminiscent of the Nets’ logo used from 1968-78. The wordmark appears against a black and white basketball with a ‘Long Island, New York’ mark in a circular shape that mirrors the secondary logo of the Brooklyn Nets.

The stars within the circular logo pay tribute to the ABA Nets’ uniforms, which the team began wearing in February 1972. There are six stars to represent the Long Island Nets’ status as the sixth man of the Brooklyn Nets organization.

The team’s home uniforms will be white with ‘NETS’ across the chest in blue, and their road jerseys are blue and feature ‘LONG ISLAND’ across the chest in red.

“There are many ways to construct a team, and having the ability to build from within with our D-League team is very important,” Brooklyn Nets General Manager Sean Marks said. “We must be strategic and systematic, and utilizing the Long Island Nets for player development is a big key to our overall plan.”

The L.I. Nets hired Alton Byrd as Vice President of Business Operations. With more than 20 years of experience in sports and brand marketing, including stints with the NBA and NFL, Byrd most recently served as Chief Revenue Officer of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream, where he oversaw the corporate sponsorship, ticket sales, and marketing departments. Byrd will oversee all business operations for the Long Island Nets.

“We are proud to bring the Nets brand back to Long Island, and to establish synergy between the team’s storied roots at Nassau Coliseum and its contemporary history in Brooklyn,” said Brett Yormark, CEO of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment. “As an experienced and innovative sales and marketing leader, Alton will help lay the foundation for the Long Island Nets as we introduce our new team to the market.”

On July 13, the L.I. Nets named Ronald Nored as head coach.

“We are excited to welcome Ronald as head coach of the Long Island Nets,” Marks said. “Ronald is a bright young mind in our game whose experience under Brad Stevens as both a player and a coach, as well as his ability to connect with today’s players, have prepared him for this role. His commitment to player development, along with his enthusiasm and passion for the game, are aligned with the vision we have for both the Brooklyn and Long Island Nets.”

Nored spent two seasons (2013-15) with the Boston Celtics organization, splitting time in his first season as a player development coach for the Celtics, while also serving as an assistant coach for their D-League affiliate, the Maine Red Claws. Prior to the 2014-15 season, the Celtics named Nored as player development director, where he took the lead organizational role for the players’ off-court development, in addition to his on-court coaching duties. Nored spent the 2015-16 season as an assistant coach at Northern Kentucky University.

A 2012 graduate of Butler University, Nored was a member of the Bulldogs’ team that reached back-to-back National Championship games in 2010 and ‘11. At the conclusion of his collegiate career, Nored, a two-time Horizon League Defensive Player of the Year, held the school record for games played, with 143, was tied for the all-time lead in steals, with 207, and ranked second on the program’s all-time assists chart with 497.