The owners of the Nets officially put the NBA team on the market yesterday, hiring Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers as financial advisers to broker the sale.

Three suitors, including Charles Wang, co-owner of the Islanders, who would like to relocate the team to Nassau County, already have submitted documents to YankeeNets, the four-year-old holding company that controls the two teams, certifying their interest in acquiring the Nets.

Now the process will become more formal, with the investment banks first issuing a sales memorandum, which outlines the team's finances, including revenues from attendance and other sources, costs of player contracts and other information, to prospective owners. Bidders will then have a chance to meet with the YankeeNets board, ask questions and submit an official bid. There also would be a chance to re-bid, sources said, in order to obtain the highest price for the franchise, which Forbes recently valued at $218 million.

One person involved in the process said he expected a deal to be completed, subject to NBA approval, by the end of the year, in part because "several solid buyers" have already been identified. "Any one of them can close a deal," the source said.