Last year, Mikhail Prokhorov suggested that the Nets might change their nickname when they move into the Barclays Center in 2012. (His line at the time: “I can put Russian name and nobody knows what it is. I can put the name of a girlfriend and every time I change, I need to change the name of the team.“) Since then, the Internet has made thousands of “Brooklyn Nyets” jokes, and, for a couple days last December, we worried they were going to call themselves the Brooklyn New Yorkers. But alas, at a press conference today, Jay-Z, who owns a minority stake in the team, announced that the franchise will simply change its name from the New Jersey Nets to the Brooklyn Nets. Changing the team’s name is the easy part, though. But convincing Knicks fans to switch allegiances and buy Nets tickets, as they’ll attempt to do with a marketing campaign targeting downtown Manhattan? That’s the hard part. [Off the Dribble/NYT]