CHARLES V. BAGLI and RICHARD SANDOMIR, The New York Times, report:

The revival of Brooklyn has been painfully slow, an effort eked out neighborhood by neighborhood, with chic new restaurants in Fort Greene, artists’ lofts in Williamsburg, new businesses in industrial Red Hook and the transformation of derelict factory buildings into million-dollar condominiums in an area with the unlikely name of Dumbo.

But the prospect of a professional basketball team moving across two rivers to Brooklyn seemed, until recently, as remote as shipbuilding returning to the sprawling Brooklyn Navy Yard complex. Now, Bruce Ratner, the developer, is negotiating to buy the New Jersey Nets and install the team in a glamorous new home designed by a world-renowned architect at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues.

For many residents, politicians and economists, a move by the Nets to Brooklyn would crystallize the rejuvenation of the borough and repudiate a 50-year cycle of decline that saw the departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1957, the closing of the Navy Yard, the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs and the riots during the blackout of 1977.

“It would cap the rebirth of Brooklyn,'’ said Fred Siegel, a history professor at Cooper Union who lives in Flatbush. “You’d heal some of the old wounds from the Dodgers having left, and people would discover all the other changes in Brooklyn.'’

The borough’s resurgence will probably continue whether Mr. Ratner and his investors succeed in his effort to buy the Nets. Mr. Ratner, who has bid about $300 million, is vying with a New Jersey group headed by Charles Kushner, a developer, and Senator Jon Corzine that intends to keep the team at its current home in New Jersey. Mr. Kushner has offered $267.5 million for the team and suggested that he may yet raise his bid.

“We’re reviewing all the financial information and due diligence to see if an adjustment in price is warranted,'’ Mr. Kushner said in a telephone interview from Jerusalem. “I can tell you that I believe it’s not done.'’

Even if Mr. Ratner did win the auction and get the necessary approval of the National Basketball Association, he would still face some daunting challenges in trying to move the team to Brooklyn. He wants to move the Nets to a $435 million, 19,000-seat glass-walled arena over Long Island Rail Road yards. The arena would be the centerpiece of a $2.5 billion commercial and residential development that would stretch for three blocks along Atlantic Avenue, one of the borough’s two main thoroughfares.

Mr. Ratner needs the state to condemn the properties not already owned by the railroad, as well as up to $150 million in government funds for streets and rail connections. The project faces stringent environmental reviews and local opposition, much of it from people who moved into what was a rough neighborhood 10 and 20 years ago and made it better.

“He is proposing to knock out a significant portion of Prospect Heights to create Ratnerville,'’ said Patty Hagan, a leader of the Prospect Heights Action Coalition and a 25-year resident. “This neighborhood revived in a gradual, organic way, almost building by building. It’s solid. The businesses that risked opening here have grown with the community.'’

But elsewhere the idea of a professional team moving into Brooklyn is dazzling. Max Stephenson, manager of the nearby Modells sports store at Flatbush and Atlantic, envisions the team in a great crosstown matchup against the Knicks.

“It would be great rivalry,'’ Mr. Stephenson said. “We could have a subway basketball series.'’

The borough’s resurgence mirrors the revival of other areas of the city like parts of the South Bronx and Harlem. But in Brooklyn that transformation seems more pronounced. College graduates now often steer toward Brooklyn instead of Manhattan; chefs at some of Manhattan’s finer restaurants regularly open up restaurants across the river, and companies like the Bank of New York are moving large numbers of employees there, signaling the return of the borough as a commercial hub.

“Over the last 20 years, Brooklyn has crawled along,'’ said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the New York City Partnership, who lives in Bay Ridge. “This would catapult us into being a destination location for business.'’

Many Brooklynites mark the beginning the borough’s downward slide to 1957, when Walter O’Malley decided to move the Dodgers to Los Angeles. In the decades that followed, the Navy yard closed. Many of the borough’s breweries and printers also shut down or moved. Between 1961 and 1976, 170 major manufacturers left Brooklyn.

Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope were among the first neighborhoods to turn around, benefiting from the resurgence of Lower Manhattan in the 1980’s as young people, artists and Wall Street executives renovated brownstones.

The revival spread slowly to other neighborhoods. New businesses and small manufacturers moved into South Brooklyn. Mr. Ratner, who is also planning to build a new headquarters for The New York Times in Manhattan, is completing another big complex in Brooklyn, Metrotech, a seven-million square foot office development.

The Brooklyn Cyclones, a minor league team, recently took up residence at a new ballpark in Coney Island. Now even the Cunard Line wants to bring the Queen Mary II, the first trans-Atlantic liner built in 30 years, to a new passenger terminal at the foot of Atlantic Avenue.

Coincidentally, the Nets would be based at the same site that Walter O’Malley wanted as a new home for the Dodgers before moving the team to California.

“To have a team on the same corner where Walter O’Malley wanted to build a domed stadium would close the sorry chapter on the Dodgers leaving,'’ said Michael Shapiro, author of “The Last Good Season: Brooklyn, the Dodgers and Their Last Pennant Race Together.'’ “It would be enormous.'’

Over at Borough Hall, Brooklyn’s most voluble cheerleader awaits word of a deal.