I was a New Jersey Nets fan from 1993 to 2004. As a teenager, I rooted for a team with an awful history just to be different than your average New Yorker who rooted for the Knicks when they were so good back then.
Memories of Greatness, Jason Kidd and the Nets (photo courtesy NY Times)
Yes, I saw the rise and fall of Derrick “Whoop-de-damn-do” Coleman, Kenny Anderson, Chris Morris, and the late Drazen Petrovic. I had a front-row seat to Keith Van Horn’s star falling after the miserable experience of playing with Stephon “All Alone 33” Marbury. Who can’t forget Jayson Williams and Marbury colliding with each other in a game against the Atlanta Hawks at home, which had Stephon’s mother, Mabel Marbury, crying on the court to aid her son? It was a tragic ending: Williams’ career was over after a leg fracture, and Marbury’s career never panned out here.
Jason Kidd leading the Nets to two NBA Finals appearances made a few Nets fans, and me, forget about the misery that had plagued the Nets for a while. But then, when Bruce Ratner and friends announced plans to move the Nets to Brooklyn, everything changed. Fans stopped going to the games. Kenyon Martin was traded in an attempt to sabotage the Nets’ stay in New Jersey, and Kidd was understandably unhappy, as he wanted out and forced his departure to Dallas.
But I moved on after the 2004 season, and the Nets have been in the wilderness since. They stunk in the final days at East Rutherford and Newark, and they haven’t been outstanding in Brooklyn, either.
At this juncture, it’s time to give it up and move on for good. The Nets need to leave our town and move to Las Vegas if they want to move forward. It’s never going to work here now that the Knicks won a championship. There’s no way the Nets can ever get fans in this town, as the locals would prefer the Knicks. Furthermore, what player would choose to play for the Nets, knowing they would always be overshadowed by the Knicks?
The Nets never had a fanbase in New Jersey to begin with. Even when they were winning during the Kidd years, barely anyone cared.
When Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving teamed up, it was the Nets’ bad luck that James Dolan found religion and hired Tom Thibodeau to lead his Knicks out of the wilderness. As the Knicks overachieved in Thibs’ first season, fans paid attention to the team again, and the Nets were ignored.
Durant, Irving, and James Harden were hurt and stumped about the Knicks’ popularity over the Nets. It was like they came here and did not understand the city’s basketball history. They were naive to think people here would change teams just because the other team in town was winning. They finally found out the hard way that’s not how it works, and by then, they gave up trying and forced their departures.
If fans didn’t care when the Nets had a super team in the city, they’re never going to care now. I would have said that even if the Knicks didn’t win a championship.
The Nets really have to go if they are ever going to move forward here. It’s simply not going to work now. They can rebuild and win the lottery a lot, and it won’t mean much. If the city won’t support them, the answer is to leave.
Joe Tsai (photo courtesy NY Post)
Nets owner Joe Tsai has no interest in moving them. This has nothing to do with him fighting the good fight. He understands the Nets are never going to win the city’s heart. He’s keeping the Nets in town since they provide more net value staying at Barclays Center than playing at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Plus, if he ever sells the Brooklyn Nets, he would make out like a bandit, as he could leave with the most expensive buyout from a bidder.
But Tsai has to ask himself this: Is it fair to the players and management that they are just pawns to Tsai’s endgame? It’s not a great working environment that’s conducive to anyone’s success. This would be like it was when Donald Sterling was running the Clippers, when he had no incentive to win since he knew he was never going to get fans in LA with the Lakers running the show and many championships to boast of.
The Nets are in a bad spot here. There are no answers. The media never cared about them. They never had fans. Don’t tell me about the Nets having one of the highest attendances in the league when most of the fans are either hipsters, tourists, casual fans, or just opposing fan bases filling the arena.
I went to the Barclays Center for a Nets playoff game against the Toronto Raptors in 2014. It was an elimination game; the Nets won and earned a winner-take-all game in Toronto. No one paid attention to the game. Yes, fans came, but it was a pro-Raptors crowd that Friday night. That’s when I knew New York would never embrace the Nets when it is a Knicks town.
The Nets need to be where they are welcome. Las Vegas would welcome them. The city would be happy just to have anyone play there, and the Nets could use a new city to make them forget their awful history here. There’s no reason for the Nets to keep chasing a lost cause.
The NBA doesn’t need an expansion. It needs teams to move out where they served their purpose.
For the Nets, that time is now. I would even go back to being a Nets fan if they played in Sin City.
