From the January 26, 2004 issue of SportsFan Magazine

Not Even Joe Piscopo Can Save The Nets!
By SportsFan Magazine

Remember Piscopo's Sinatra? Classic stuff. Better than Hartman's because it seemed more like a tribute than a parody. It's basically like the difference between Hartman's Clinton and Darrell Hammond's Clinton: Phil had it down, but Hammond really understood the used-car salesman thing that Willie had going for him.

Anyhoo, here's more on the Nets move to Brooklyn from Newsday:

Nets minority owner Alan Landis gazed around a nearly empty Continental Airlines Arena about 45 minutes before the start of the game between his Nets and the Boston Celtics, his brow crinkled underneath a silver mane of slicked-back hair.

"It's Sunday afternoon. This place should be packed. We'll see," Landis said. "I was told I should bring bodyguards."

Although Landis and principal owners Raymond Chambers and Lewis Katz did not have a vote when the YankeeNets board approved the Nets' sale to Brooklyn developer Bruce Ratner for $300 million last week, it is difficult for them to shake the perception that they allowed the two-time defending Eastern Conference champions to desert New Jersey.

Landis has been a stalwart supporter of Chambers and his years-long efforts to build an arena in downtown Newark, which retains a faint heartbeat, and hopes to keep a stake in the team no matter where it goes.

"It's all still awkward. We don't know what's going to happen," Landis said.

He found a sympathetic ear yesterday in longtime friend Joe Piscopo, the former "Saturday Night Live" comedian who at times hosts a knockoff of "American Idol" at the arena during halftime. Piscopo's "Are you from Joisey? I'm from Joisey" bit during his television days was born of his affection for his beleaguered home state, and he said the Nets' impending exit has left him "heartbroken."

Piscopo defended Landis and Chambers and the current Nets ownership, which he said tried everything through three gubernatorial administrations to make a Newark arena a reality.

"I say this with the greatest respect for the place that I live and will die, New Jersey USA: How could they screw up the arena deal in Newark?" Piscopo said. "You see the way New York did it in Brooklyn? That's exactly what we wanted to do in Newark. [Mayor] Sharpe James was on board and Donny DiFrancesco, the governor at the time, Donny D said, 'Here's your arena.' Every other politician in this state nitpicked: 'Do we do this, do we do that?' We lost the team. That's when we lost the team."