Brooklyn has its own professional basketball team, and Bruce Ratner had nothing to do it.
The Brooklyn Wonders, part of the recently revived American Basketball Association, will tip off for their first home game tonight — three years before Ratner’s New Jersey Nets are expected to relocate to a glass-walled, Frank Gehry-designed arena in the middle of the Atlantic Yards mega-development.
The Wonders will open their 36-game season against the Newark Express on Nov. 11 — and they even have a Brooklynite, point guard Karl Sanders, leading them.
The league’s famously flashy red-white-and-blue ball is perhaps the sole remnant of the original ABA, the legendary stomping grounds of Julius “Dr. J” Erving, a star of the then-New York Nets (ooh, cue the ironic music).
The original ABA merged with the NBA in 1976 and was not resurrected until 1999. This is the Wonders’ first season.
Brooklyn Wonders opening game, Nov. 11, 7 pm at Kingsborough Community College (2001 Oriental Blvd.). For information, go to www.brooklynwonders.com or call (212) 338-0001).
