The Brooklyn Nets are a major league sports team based out of the New York City borough in Brooklyn. They were the first major sports franchise to set up their operations in Brooklyn since the Brooklyn Dodgers (a Major League Baseball Team). They are one of two NBA teams located in New York. The other New York team is the New York Knicks. The Nets teams are a part of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. The Brooklyn Nets were established in 1967 as a member of the NBA’s rival league the ABA. Currently, they play in the Barclays Center.
New Jersey Americans
The New Jersey Americans made their ABA debut in the 1967 season. The Americans’ uniforms took a lot of inspiration from their nickname. They wore red and white uniforms. The white variation of their uniforms had red, white, and blue stripes with the numbers and names being bordered with red and blue trim. The red uniforms were nearly identical, the only change coming in the different colors in the trim. The red uniforms featured a white and blue trim.
This was a time well before teams had their own million or billion-dollar arenas. As a result of this, the Americans were forced to play in an Armory. This venue would end up being the downfall to their inaugural season. They faced off against the Kentucky Colonels for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. However, their typical home court, the Teaneck Armory was booked. As a result of this, the Americans were forced to find a last-minute replacement to play this season-defining game. They found a replacement in the form of Long Island Arena.
However, this is when things would go very wrong for the Americans. When the two teams showed up at the arena, they found that there were several floorboards and nails missing. One player reported the floor rising in one area when he put pressure on the floor. Along with this, there was no padding on the backboards or basket supports. Lastly, players noticed that one basket was higher than the other. As a result of this, Lakers legend and then commissioner of the league George Mikan found that the court was unfit to play on and the game was forfeited by the Americans, forcing them to miss the playoffs.
New York Nets
The New Jersey Americans would relocate to Long Island in 1968 and change their name to the New York Nets. This name was chosen because it rhymed with two of the other major professional sports teams in New York City. The first major professional sports team is the New York Jets and the second is the New York Mets. The team had an awful season their first year after the move. They finished last in the ABA with a record of 17-61.
Things were beginning to look up for the New York Nets after this season. However, things once again fell through for the team. They pursued Lew Alcindor who had some interest in playing for the New York Nets as he is from New York. However, he would end up deciding to take his talents to the NBA rather than the ABA and he signed with the Milwaukee Bucks.
The New York Nets finished fourth in the following season, led by Levern Tart who was a top three shooting guard in the ABA at the time. The Nets finally landed the star they were desperately chasing in this offseason after they traded their number one pick and cash to the Virginia Squires for Rick Berry.
Two years after Berry was added to the team, New York advanced to the ABA Finals, but were defeated by the Indiana Pacers in six games. The Nets once again took a big name from the Virginia Squires, this offseason, landing the best player in the history of the franchise, Julius “Dr. J” Erving. The New York Nets defeated the Utah Stars in the 1974 ABA Finals. Erving was also named the MVP of the league that season.
While things were looking up for the Nets, tragedy would strike the franchise in a major way. On June 24, 1975, Nets forward Wendell Ladner was killed in a plane crash at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Despite the tragedy having a clear effect on the locker room, the Nets toughed things out through the season and had a to of success. The Nets won another ABA Championship this season. This time, taking down the Denver Nuggets in six games. This was the last championship in the history of the ABA. Although they had a shaky start, the Nets really stepped up in the final seasons of the ABA.
New Jersey Nets
The Nets would join the NBA in the summer of 1976. Along with the Nets, the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, and San Antonio Spurs would also join the NBA through the merger. Before their first NBA game, the Nets traded two of their first-round pick in exchange for “Tiny” Nate Archibald. Also before their first NBA game, the NBA gave them a very nice welcoming gift in the form of a $4.8 million dollar fine they had to pay to the Knicks for “invading their space” they also had to pay $3.2 million just to join the NBA.
The team owners were short on cash due to this and as a result, were not able to pay Julius Erving the contract raise that he was promised. As a result of this, he refused to play for the team unless he was paid what he was promised. The Nets were unable to do this and offered him to the Knicks if they waived the $4.8 million the Nets owed them. The Knicks declined and Erving was instead the team decided to trade him to the Philadelphia 76ers for $3 million.
Pairing the loss of Erving with Archibald breaking his foot, the Nets season was down the drain. It was a very disappointing way for their first season in the NBA to go. At the end of the season, the Nets had a record of 22-60. The only interesting thing to come from this year for the Nets was that they became the first team in NBA history to start an all-left-handed lineup.
When did Nets move NJ?
With business not looking good in Long Island for the Nets, they decided to uproot and move back to New Jersey to become the New Jersey Nets. The Knicks once again got in the way of the move and tried to force the Nets to stay in Long Island as they said it would infringe on their territorial rights to New Jersey. The state of New Jersey themselves had to intervene in the legal battle and it would conclude in the Nets who were already running out of money was forced to pay another $4 million to the Knicks.
The 1978-1979 season saw the Nets make the playoffs for the first time in the NBA led by franchise player Bernard King. Despite things looking up for the New Jersey Nets, they were swept in the first round by Julius Erving and the Philadelphia 76ers.
Things were looking good for the Nets early on in the 80s. Although they were not winning championships or making deep playoff runs, they rattled off four straight winning seasons. However, their head coach, Larry Brown was suspended from the team for the remainder of his final season with the team after he accepted a job to be the head coach of the Kansas Jayhawks.
Heading into the 1983-1984 season, the New Jersey Nets were projected to have their best team since joining the NBA. They were led by big names like Darryl Williams, Buck Williams, Otis Birdsong, and Michael Ray Richardson. In this season, New Jersey would finally get their revenge and win their first playoff series against Erving and the Philadelphia 76ers. However, they were not enough to take down the Milwaukee Bucks and fell to them in six games.
The following years for New Jersey were plagued with injuries and off-the-court issues. Michael Ray Robinson was banned from the NBA after failing three drug tests. The rest of the stars fell victim to injuries and were moved from the team. Along with this, the Nets missed on a handful of draft picks that could have landed them franchise-changing players. With this string of misfortune hitting New Jersey as hard and frequently as it did in this era, they became stuck in a rebuild for years.
The rebuild finally came to an end in the 1991-1992 season after drafting Derrick Coleman and Kenny Andersen. They also made a trade with the Portland Trail Blazers to add Drazen Petrovic to the team. Although the team had a losing record this year, they still made the NBA playoffs, however, they were unsurprisingly knocked out by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round.
The following season they brought in Chuck Daly to be the head coach of the team. In this season, they finished as the 6th seed in the Eastern Conference. With Petrovic and Andersen both being injured in this series, the Cavaliers once again knocked out New Jersey in the first round.
Tragedy would once again strike the franchise during the offseason after their first-round exit. Their star player, Drazen Petrovic would pass away due to a car accident in Germany. Petrovic was an incredible player and shooter. Due to his passing, he became one of the biggest what-ifs in the history of the league. Along with this, there is no telling what impact he could have had for New Jersey if he could have continued his career.
The following season, even without Petrovic, the Nets finished as the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference. Along with this, both Andersen and Coleman made their first and only All-Star appearances of their careers. They would once again be bounced from the playoffs in the first round. This time coming from their rivals, the New York Knicks.
After this playoff appearance, the Nets would struggle through the remainder of the 1996 season. In the span up until that season, the Nets would become the laughing stock of the entire NBA. Coleman was featured on Sports Illustrated and was portrayed as the face of selfishness and a ball-hogging style of play in the NBA. The public image of the Nets was so far in the toilet at this point that they did nothing and said nothing about this cover.
The franchise arguably truly reached rock bottom when team owner Jon Spoelstra put forth the idea to rebrand the team as the New Jersey Swamp Dragons. This idea got so far into the process that the Nets sank $500,000 into the project. Thankfully the idea was eventually shut down by the other owner of the team, David Gerstein. If Gerstein did not change his mind and change his vote from yes to no, the name change would have passed unanimously and the Nets may still be known as the Swamp Dragons to this day.
The team started to come together after trading for Sam Cassell, Keith Van Horn, Lucious Harris, and two other players. The only player that remained from the 1990 Nets was Jayson Williams who would eventually be an All-Star for the Nets. They were eliminated from the playoffs in the first round after being swept by the Chicago Bulls.
The Nets got off to a very slow start in the following season and Cassell suffered an injury in the opening game. New Jersey would end up trading Cassell to the Bucks and would trade to add Stephon Marbury from the Timberwolves. After the Nets were eliminated from the playoffs, Marbury would collide with Williams which would lead to him fracturing his tibia for the second time in his career. This is something Williams would never bounce back from and he would not play another game in the NBA.
In 2000, things would really come together for the Nets. They would draft Kenyon Martin who would be an essential piece to the teams’ future success. Marbury achieved his first All-Star appearance in New Jersey, however, due to chemistry issues, his talent never led to wins.
On draft night in 2001, the Nets traded Eddie Griffin for Richard Jefferson, Jason Collins, and Brandon Armstrong. One day after the draft, they made a deal that sent Marbury to the Suns and in return landed Jason Kidd. With those moves out of the way, the Nets were ready to finally contend for a championship.
In the 2002 season, the Nets made a Finals appearance in which they faced off against the Los Angeles Lakers. This Lakers team consisted of a prime Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. The Nets could not compete with one of the best duos the league has ever seen and as a result, they were swept in the Finals.
Before the 2002-2003 season, they traded Keith Van Horn and a role player to the Philadelphia 76ers for Dikembe Mutumbo. They would once again make the NBA Finals, this time facing off against the San Antonio Spurs. The Spurs would knock the Nets out in six games.
In the offseason, Kidd resigned with the Nets even though the Spurs were heavily pursuing him. His main reasons for staying were having unfinished business in New Jersey along with the Nets signing Alonzo Mourning. Mourning had an awful run with the Nets that was cut short due to a kidney ailment. They were eventually eliminated in seven games by the eventual championship-winning Detroit Pistons. Kidd was playing on an injured knee and was held scoreless in the final game of the series.
In the following offseason, the team traded Kenyon Martin to the Nuggets and Kerry Kittles to the Clippers. With Kidd needing surgery on his knee, Jefferson was forced to lead the team and it was too much for him. The front office saw this and packaged Mourning, Eric Williams, Aron Williams, and draft picks to land Vince Carter.
Once Kidd was healthy, the trio of Kidd, Carter, and Jefferson meshed incredibly well. Even with the Nets being ten games out of a playoff spot at one point in the season, they rallied for the 8th seed but were swept in the first round by the Miami Heat.
Their following two seasons consisted of two second-round losses to the Cavaliers and Heat. The Nets went on to trade their championship core in the following seasons due to injury and the team was thrown into a massive rebuild. There was not much worth mentioning that went on in their final years in New Jersey outside of drafting Brook Lopez. They were once again one of the worst teams in the league and one season even got off to a historically bad 0-18 start.
The final event in this era was the Nets trading for Derron Williams in what would end up being the first piece in a terribly failed experiment that set the franchise back for years. Their final game in New Jersey was capped off with an embarrassing 105-87 loss to the 76ers and their final game as a team ended in a 98-67 loss to the Raptors.
Brooklyn Nets
In their first few seasons as the Brooklyn Nets, the team became a bit of a retirement home for washed-up former stars. Along with Williams on the roster, Brooklyn traded for Joe Johnson, Kevin Garnett, Jason Terry, and Paul Pierce. The trade that landed them Garnett, Terry, and Pierce would go down as one of the worst trades in the history of the league.
The Nets were still good enough to make consistent appearances in the playoffs, however, they never really amounted to deep playoff runs. Jason Kidd would eventually come back to become the head coach of the Nets.
With an aging core, it was very clear that a long rebuild was in store for the Nets. Things got so bad in Brooklyn that a front office member wrote an open letter to Yahoo Sports in which he apologized for the “free-spending” approach he took. For the sake of any Nets fans reading this we will skip through this era as it was painful to watch even from an outsider’s perspective. With the Nets sending so many draft picks in their trades, they were unable to bring in any young talent and no one wanted to sign with the laughing stock of the league.
Things finally got better for Brooklyn in the 2017 season. They traded Brook Lopez and a draft pick that would turn into Kyle Kuzma for D’Angelo Russell and Timofey Mozgov (was later traded for Dwight Howard who the Nets waived). Russell became the teams’ first All-Star since Joe Johnson in 2014.
This version of the Brooklyn Nets featured a young and energetic roster. Along with Russell, there was Caris LeVert, Joe Harris, Jarrett Allen, and Spencer Dinwiddie. Their crowning accomplishment with this rendition of the team was a sixth seed followed by being eliminated by the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round. While this may not sound like much, the Nets very surprisingly made this a competitive series.
How the Team Looks Today
Today, the Brooklyn Nets are contending for an NBA title. They brought in Steve Nash to be their head coach and are led by a big three of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden. And, even though Harden left the team, they still got a massive return in Ben Simmons and Seth Curry.
Their first two trips to the postseason were far from a success. Injuries and a couple of inches of Kevin Durant’s shoe prevented them from reaching the NBA Finals last season, while poor chemistry led them to be swept by the Boston Celtics in the first round of the 2021-22 playoffs.
Kyrie Irving missed most of the season as he refused to take the COVID-19 vaccine. He protested NYC’s vaccine mandate, stating that he wanted to be a voice for the voiceless, thus becoming ineligible to play home games. The Nets didn’t want him to be a distraction so decided to shut him down until a Covid-19 breakout forced them to allow him to play on road games. Kyrie was eventually cleared to play but the team failed to develop any sort of chemistry, leading to that humiliating elimination.
Irving is now eligible to sign a max contract extension but the Nets are reportedly on the fence about that. They claim he has a history of injuries and unpredictability and only want people entirely committed to their project and championship aspirations. Needless to say, that could lead to Irving’s departure. as he’s not going to like being lowballed by the organization.
The Nets don’t have that much financial flexibility and will have issues replacing him if he decides to walk away as a free agent. Moreover, his departure could also lead to Kevin Durant’s frustration, all but dooming their project right before their eyes. That’s why it’ll be key to keep KD happy and help Ben Simmons get back to full strength, as they’ve already spent way too much time and money to try and make things work.
There are also certain doubts regarding Nash’s ability to lead this team to success. He had no prior experience as a coach and was exposed a couple of times throughout the postseason. To be fair, however, he did have to deal with multiple injuries and absences and countless different lineups. Therefore, next season will be a tough task and there’ll be plenty of pressure and no more room for excuses for him.
All things considered, one didn’t have to be a basketball savant or a clairvoyant to predict this could happen. The Nets jeopardized their future by signing two of the most volatile characters in the Association. Then, they traded for another one in James Harden, who didn’t even spend a full season with them. While the talent was undeniable and they could’ve become one of the greatest offensive juggernauts in NBA history, their egos have constantly gotten in their way throughout their careers.
But, then again, it’s still not too late for them. If Kevin Durant stays healthy and Kyrie Irving puts basketball first, then they’ll be the team to beat in the Eastern Conference, especially if Simmons is once again ready to step up and prove his doubters wrong once and for all. That’s what they need to win their very first title in franchise history.
What were the Brooklyn Nets called before?
There have been four variations of this now NBA team, the New Jersey Americans, the New York Nets, the New Jersey Nets, and the Brooklyn Nets. While there are a handful of teams that have a more storied history, there is still a lot to learn and be known about the Nets.
