Report: Nets lost $144M on basketball side, 8 others lost money

The Brooklyn Nets spent nearly $104 million on player salaries this season, easily tops in the league and resulting in an estimated $90 million in luxury tax payments, all for a second-round playoff exit.

But hey, owner Mikhail Prokhorov ain't a baller on a budget. Gotta spend money to make money, right?

Wrong. He spent money to lose money. A lot of money.

$144 million, to be exact, according to a report from Grantland that contains detail on which teams lost money, how much, and which teams will be paying the luxury tax this offseason.

From the report:

The basketball side of the Nets’ business is projected to have lost $144 million over the 2013-14 season, according to a confidential memo the league sent to all 30 teams in early June. (Grantland has reviewed and verified the memo with a half dozen sources.) If that strikes you as out of whack, that’s because it is.

The NBA expects nine teams will end up having lost money once luxury-tax distribution and revenue-sharing payments are finalized. The Nets, with that monster $144 million figure, are the biggest losers. Next in line? The Wizards, with projected losses of about $13 million. That’s right: The Nets lost $131 million more than any other NBA team last season.

Again, because it's worth repeating: the Nets lost $144 million this season on the basketball side of the business, and no other team lost more than $13 million. Given that eight other teams lost money, the math holds that Brooklyn lost more money than the rest of the losers combined.

The report also indicates that "several" smaller market teams are turning a profit almost solely due to revenue-sharing, which is both a negative and a positive, proving the effectiveness but also necessity of the system.

Also included is that non-luxury tax paying teams are expected to receive roughly $3 million in payments from luxury tax teams once at least 50 percent of tax payments are taken for "league purposes."

The report also includes an interesting note on the top earners:

The Thunder are indeed paying into the revenue-sharing system, rare for such a tiny market, but they’re slated to make nearly $29 million in profit when everything is netted out. That’s the fifth-best projection in the league, trailing only the Lakers ($100.1 million), Bulls ($61 million), Rockets ($40.7 million), and Celtics ($33.1 million). 
...
Holy cow, the Lakers! They end up with that huge profit despite contributing a league-high $49 million to revenue-sharing. 

The Lakers, then, despite being a tax team themselves this year, are the anti-Nets.

[Salary data courtesy ShamSports, Luxury tax info courtesy Larry Coon]