The New Jersey Nets have announced ticket price increases.

The average price of a Nets ticket -- excluding the top-end front-row celeb prices (which are $275 or more) -- will be $75.31, a six percent increase. Most lower-level, center-section seats will go up %20 to $150 per ticket per game.

It's a slap in the face for New Jersey fans. They've already been told "we don't want you, we're moving to Brooklyn" and now the Nets' idea of a salve is to hike ticket prices on a lame-duck team.

True, Ratner doesn't technically own the team yet. But with the NBA likely to take the risky, unfortunate step of ratifying his purchase, it's clear that these price hikes come with Ratner's blessing.

How's that for a kick in the head, basketball fans?

The Nets did announce $15 tickets for upwards of 3,000 fans per game next year. That's nice, but they'll be the most-distant seats in the joint. Also, that $15 ducat doesn't include the cost of the Hubble Telescope you'll need to watch games from the far reaches of the upper deck of the Nets' current home.

It also says this -- if that's the number of "affordable" seats Ratner plans to offer at his Brooklyn arena, then the cost of the Gehry arena's remaining 16,000 seats per game will skyrocket to the upper strata -- beyond reach of the average Brooklynite that Forest City Ratner is trying so hard to seduce into supporting its project.

See, the thing about Ratner, FCR, Markowitz, Schumer, Bloomberg and Pataki is that they hang themselves with their own numbers. What Ratner is saying with these ticket increases is this:

"Our average ticket price for regular fans for a lame-duck team that might be on the downslide in an underperforming arena is $75, and that's the price for 85% of the seats."

What fans can be expected to wonder is this:

"If that's the deal for a lame-duck team in the Meadowlands, what's it gonna cost me and my family when they move to Brooklyn?!"

That's in addition to all the other questions fans are asking about Ratner and Friends' dubious undertaking.