National Basketball Association

Nets.com redirects to Celtics' site

Published Aug. 10, 2013 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett are two of the most iconic Boston Celtics of the past decade. These two bleed Celtic Green, and it makes sense that the Nets would take on some of the Celtics' team culture after trading for Pierce and KG.

But... did anybody expect that this culture change would be so pervasive that typing in "Nets.com" in your search bar would lead you directly to Boston's official team page on NBA.com? Did you think that a Google search of "Nets.com" would yield a top result of that Celtics team page?

That is exactly what happened Saturday, as the owner of the Nets.com domain decided to play an epic prank on BK's finest.

It appears that the domain is not owned by the actual Brooklyn Nets franchise, as Nets.com's official description on Google is "The Nets and the NBA - no need for New Jersey or Brooklyn, just the Nets." BrooklynNets.com still redirects to the Nets' official site, as does the Nets logo under the "Teams" tab on the NBA's home page.

In fact, this isn't the first time that there have been some jokes played by the people running Nets.com. Back in December of 2012, Deadspin reported that the site was redirecting to... get this... the New York Knicks' All-Star Ballot.

Before the Knicks prank, Nets.com led you to a mysterious website that featured, among other things, a (mildly disturbing) picture of Mark Cuban sticking his tongue out and a line of text in Russian that translates to "Mikhail, have you noticed?"

The most surprising aspect of this entire story is that Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov and his billions have not been able to pry away the Nets.com domain from whoever this Internet prankster is. If Prokhorov is willing to pay upwards of $180 million in salary plus luxury taxes next season, he should be able to fork over the cash to purchase Nets.com. Whoever is behind all of these shenanigans must be messing with Prokhorov and the Nets franchise for non-monetary reasons.

Regardless of the prank's motivations, there is no doubting the fact that this is a legendary display of trolling prowess. Let's all give a round of applause to the evil genius behind all of this.

Follow Jack Kuhlenschmidt on Twitter

(h/t to Deadspin)