History Of The Brooklyn Nets

The Brooklyn Nets, a professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, were founded in 1967 and initially played in Teaneck, New Jersey, as the New Jersey Americans, followed by a period spent in Long Island as the New York Nets and later returning to play as the New Jersey Nets. They are a member of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association (NBA), as well as an original member of the American Basketball Association (ABA). In 2012, the team moved to Brooklyn and were renamed the Brooklyn Nets.

1967–1976: The ABA years

The franchise was established in 1967 as a founding member of the American Basketball Association (ABA), with trucking magnate Arthur J. Brown as the owner. Brown had operated several AAU teams in and around New York City, and was viewed as an ideal pick to run the nascent league's New York franchise. The team was named the ''New York Americans'', and Brown intended for it to play at the 69th Regiment Armory in Manhattan, but pressure from the New York Knicks of the older National Basketball Association (NBA) forced the Armory to back out three months before opening day. Brown found it difficult to find a suitable replacement venue in New York. Many of them were booked solid, and others had owners who did not want to anger the Knicks by opening their doors to a rival team. The team was left scrambling for a venue with opening day approaching, and it finally settled on the Teaneck Armory in Teaneck, New Jersey. While the franchise's name officially remained the New York Americans, it played as the New Jersey Americans. It would not be the last time that the Knicks directly affected the franchise's future.

The Americans played fairly well in their first season, tying the Kentucky Colonels for the fourth (and final) playoff spot in the Eastern Division. However, the Teaneck Armory was booked, forcing the Americans to scramble for a last-minute replacement. They found one in the Long Island Arena in Commack, New York.

When the Americans and Colonels arrived for the game, they found that the floor had several missing boards and bolts, and was unstable in several areas (one player claimed to have seen one side of the floor come up when he stepped on another). There was no padding on the backboards or basket supports, and one basket appeared to be higher than the other. There was also a large amount of condensation from a hockey game the previous night. After the Colonels refused to play under these conditions, league commissioner George Mikan ruled that the Americans had failed to provide acceptable playing facilities and forfeited the game to the Colonels, 2–0.

After a planned move to Newark, New Jersey, and changed its name to the New York Nets. The name "Nets" was used because it rhymes with the names of two other professional sports teams that played in the New York metropolitan area at the time: Major League Baseball's New York Mets and the American Football League's New York Jets, and because it relates to basketball in general, as it is part of the basket.

The team finished last in its first New York season and drew a paltry 1,108 a game, about half of what it had drawn a year earlier. They posted a 17–61 record, and shuffled 23 different players on and off the roster. Brown sold the team to clothing manufacturer Roy Boe after that season. Boe started off his ownership with big hopes for the off-season. Desperate for a star, the team pursued UCLA star Lew Alcindor, and won rights to him in a secret ABA draft. Alcindor was reportedly interested in playing in his native New York, but after contemplating his options for a month, he instead opted to sign with the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks. Nonetheless the Nets moved on with their off-season plans to relocate to the Island Garden in West Hempstead. Led by an ABA top 3 scoring guard Levern Tart, the Nets finished in fourth place and made the playoffs for the first time in franchise history in the 1969–70 season, and attendance went up threefold to 3,504. During the 1970 off-season, the team finally managed to acquire a star in Rick Barry after trading their No. 1 pick and cash to the Virginia Squires. After another playoff season at the Island Garden, the team moved to the brand new Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale for the end of the 1971–72 season.

In 1972, two years after the acquisition of Barry, the Nets advanced to their first ABA finals.Remember the ABA: 1971–72 Regular Season Standings and Playoff Results
/ref> However, they could not overcome the Indiana Pacers and lost the series four games to two. Barry left after that postseason, sending the Nets into rebuilding mode. The 1972–73 season was one of disappointment, as the Nets only managed to win 30 games.

The 1973–74 season saw the Nets finally put all the pieces together. The key event of the season though would come in the 1973 off-season, as the Nets acquired Julius Erving from the Virginia Squires. With Erving, who was affectionately known as "Dr. J", the Nets ended the season with a franchise record 55 victories. After Erving was voted the ABA's MVP, the Nets advanced in the playoffs and won their first title, defeating the Utah Stars in the 1974 ABA Finals.

The success continued into the 1974–75 season as they topped the previous season's win record by winning 58 games—a record that still stands to this day. The Nets, though, were eliminated four games to one, by the Spirits of St. Louis in the first round of the 1975 ABA playoffs.

Tragedy struck the Nets on the afternoon of June 24, 1975, when forward Wendell Ladner was killed when Eastern Air Lines Flight 66 crashed after being caught in severe wind shear upon final approach to John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The Nets continued their winning ways in the 1975–76 season—the final season for the ABA—with Erving leading them to a successful 55–win season; he also was named MVP again that year. After a grueling series with the Denver Nuggets, the Nets won the last ABA championship series in league history in six games. The series clincher had Erving leading the Nets on a massive fourth quarter comeback at the Nassau Coliseum after being down 22 points in the third quarter. The win gave the team their second championship in three years.

1976–1981: The move to the NBA and return to New Jersey

The summer of 1976 saw the ABA–NBA merger finally take place. As part of the merger agreement, four teams from the ABA—the Nets, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, and San Antonio Spurs—joined the NBA. The Nets and Nuggets had actually applied to join the NBA in 1975, but were forced to play a lame-duck season in the ABA by court order. Prior to their first NBA season, the Nets traded two draft picks to the Kansas City Kings for guard Nate Archibald. The Nets appeared to be poised to pick up where they left off in the ABA.

However, they got a rude surprise when the NBA forced the Nets to pay an additional $4.8 million directly to the Knicks for "invading" the New York area. Coming on the heels of the $3.2 million that the team had to pay for joining the NBA, this left Boe short of cash, and he was forced to renege on a promised pay raise for Erving. Erving refused to play for the Nets under these conditions and refused to report to camp.

The Nets offered Erving's contract to the Knicks in return for waiving the indemnity, but the Knicks turned it down. When the Philadelphia 76ers offered to acquire Erving for $3 million—roughly the same amount they had to pay for NBA membership—Boe had little choice but to accept. In essence, the Nets were forced to trade their franchise player for a berth in the NBA.

Without Erving, the Nets wrote off the 1976–77 season as a lost cause. However, they lost all semblance of respectability when Archibald broke his foot in January. The team finished at 22–60, the worst record in the league. The team did set one record of sorts; in February 1977, they became the first NBA team ever to have an all-left-handed starting lineup, with Tim Bassett, Al Skinner, Bubbles Hawkins, Dave Wohl, and Kim Hughes.

Due to the team's low attendance and poor financial picture on Long Island, Boe decided to move the franchise back to New Jersey prior to the 1977–78 season. The Knicks once again became an obstacle and threatened to block the move because it would infringe on their exclusive territorial rights to New Jersey. The Nets responded by suing the Knicks on the basis that their actions violated anti-trust laws. The lawsuit was settled between the teams after the league and the state of New Jersey intervened, and the Nets agreed to pay another $4 million to the Knicks for the rights to move.

With the move official, the team was renamed the New Jersey Nets after its new home state. While the team awaited the completion of a new arena at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, they played four seasons at the Rutgers Athletic Center at Rutgers University in Piscataway. The 1978–1979 season saw the team, aided by the strong play of Bernard King, qualify for its first NBA playoff appearance. They fell to Philadelphia 2–0 in the first round, with the loss setting the stage for a period of rebuilding in the coming decade.

1981–1986: A promising start to the decade

In 1981, the team moved to the Meadowlands, into the now-completed Brendan Byrne Arena (which became known as the Continental Airlines Arena in 1996, and was renamed the Izod Center in October 2007) and experienced modest success with four consecutive winning seasons. In 1982–83, while coached by Larry Brown, the Nets were having their best season since joining the NBA. However, Brown accepted the head coaching job at the University of Kansas during the last month of the season and was suspended for the rest of the season. The Nets would never recover from the coaching change and would lose in the first round of the playoffs to their Hudson River rival, the New York Knicks.

In the 1983–84 season, the Nets fielded what was believed to be their best team since joining the league. Led by Darryl Dawkins, Buck Williams, Otis Birdsong, and Micheal Ray Richardson, the team won their first NBA playoff series, defeating the defending champion 76ers in the first round of the 1984 NBA playoffs before falling to the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference semifinals in six games.

Injuries plagued the team during the 1984–85 season, but the Nets still managed to win 42 games before being eliminated from the playoffs by the Detroit Pistons in three games.

1986–1990: Injury-plagued years

Newly hired head coach Dave Wohl helped lead the Nets to a respectable record at the beginning of the 1985–86 season, posting a 23–14 start. New Jersey's promising start dissipated with the loss of two of its top scorers. All-Star Micheal Ray Richardson flunked a drug test for the third time and was banned from the league for life, and star center Darryl Dawkins only played 39 games due to a back injury. Long-time Nets veterans Buck Williams and Mike Gminski filled in the gap and powered the club on both offense and defense, helping the Nets earn the 7th seed in the 1986 NBA playoffs with a 39–43 record before being swept by the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round. This would be the first of many losing seasons for the Nets, and the team would not qualify for the playoffs again until the 1991–92 season.

New Jersey acquired Orlando Woolridge and drafted Dwayne "Pearl" Washington in hopes of strengthening the faltering team, yet the season only brought more misfortune to the Garden State. Dawkins slipped in his bathtub and suffered another back injury, effectively ending his career. Birdsong played in only seven games while nursing a shin stress fracture and Washington had a shoddy rookie year performance. A formerly solid backcourt soon became plagued with injuries and contract disputes. The Nets ended the 1986–87 season with a 24–58 record, the club's worst finish since 1980.

Hoping to maximize the team's health in the upcoming season, the Nets traded injury-plagued Dawkins in a three-way deal that brought John Bagley and Keith Lee to New Jersey. The Nets selected Dennis Hopson (over Scottie Pippen, Reggie Miller and Kevin Johnson) as the third pick of the 1987 NBA draft in hopes of re-establishing a stable backcourt. However the injury bug bit again when Bagley, Lee and reserve Tony Brown became hurt at the start of the 1987–88 season. In addition, leading scorer Orlando Woolridge was suspended by the league for violation of the league substance abuse policy 19 games through the season. New Jersey axed coach Wohl after 15 games, and went through three different coaches over the course of the season, finishing with the second worst record in the league at 19–63.

Hopson was never able to live up to the organization's expectations and subsequent first round draft picks Chris Morris (1988) and Mookie Blaylock (1989) also failed to reverse the team's descent. By the 1989–90 season the Nets would finish with an NBA worst 17–65 record, which was also at that point the worst in franchise history.

1990–1996: Another promising start and downfall

During the early 1990s, the Nets began to improve behind a core of young players. New Jersey drafted forward Derrick Coleman with the first pick of the 1990 draft and then took guard Kenny Anderson with the second pick of the following draft. The Nets later added Dražen Petrović in a trade with the Portland Trail Blazers. Although the Nets did not finish with a winning record in the 1991–92 season, they finished sixth overall in the conference and qualified for the playoffs. The Nets lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round, three games to one, and coach Bill Fitch left after the season.

The team improved significantly in 1992–93, led by the emerging trio of Petrović, Coleman and Anderson. Chuck Daly, who had been let go by the Detroit Pistons following the 1991–92 season, was hired by the Nets and immediately paid dividends. However, injuries to both Anderson and Petrović toward the end of the season sent the team into a 1–10 slump to end the regular season. The Nets finished the season at 43–39, which again earned them the sixth seed and a date with the Cavaliers in the first round. With Anderson out with a broken hand and Petrović playing on an injured knee, the Nets lost a tough five-game series.

The Nets experienced tragedy in the off-season, as Petrović was killed in an auto accident in Germany. Still, the team managed to win 45 games during the 1993–94 season. Anderson and Coleman made their only All-Star appearances this season. The Nets again qualified for the playoffs as the East's seventh seed, but were eliminated by the New York Knicks the first round of the 1994 NBA playoffs, three games to one.

After the 1993–94 season Daly resigned and Butch Beard was hired to be the team's head coach. The Nets struggled through the rest of the decade. During the mid-1990s, the NBA's main image problem was that of the selfish, immature athlete, and the Nets exemplified this. In 1995, Coleman was featured on the cover of ''Sports Illustrated'' as the poster child of the selfish NBA player, with Anderson, Benoit Benjamin, Dwayne Schintzius and Chris Morris among the mentioned athletes. The team's reputation was so poor that in an effort to shed its negative image, team president Jon Spoelstra decided to rename the team the New Jersey Swamp Dragons in 1994, partly inspired by the New Jersey Meadowlands in which the team played. After the team obtained approval from ownership and spent $500,000 on trademarks, the name was ultimately rejected when Nets co-owner David Gerstein changed his mind and voted 'no' as the name was sent to the NBA Board of Governors for approval, despite unanimous approval from the other team owners. In both the 1994–95 and 1995–96 seasons, the Nets finished with identical 30–52 records. Beard was fired after the second of those two seasons.

1996–2001: Rebuild and rebrand

In an effort to start anew, Coleman and Anderson were both traded during the 1995–96 season and New Jersey hired UMass head coach John Calipari to coach the team. Kerry Kittles was selected in the 1996 NBA draft and midway through the 1996–97 season, the team traded for Sam Cassell. After a 26–56 season, the Nets made a major draft-day trade in June 1997, acquiring Keith Van Horn, Lucious Harris and two other players for Tim Thomas. The only player from the early 1990s that the Nets retained was Jayson Williams, who was developing into a rebounding specialist.

The 1997–98 season saw several changes for the Nets. The first was a rebranding of the team that saw the ditching of the previous logo in favor of a 3-D shield logo, which was designed by Patrick McDarby, representing a futuristic backboard depicting the team name 'Nets' with a basketball passing through a hoop that the team used until their departure from New Jersey, along with a new uniform set. The second was the team's style of play, which resulted in the Nets staying in playoff contention for most of the season. The team played well under Calipari, winning 43 games and qualifying for the playoffs on the last day of the season. Power forward Jayson Williams was selected as a reserve in the 1998 NBA All-Star Game. The Nets were seeded eighth in the Eastern Conference and lost to the Chicago Bulls in the 1998 playoffs in three straight games. The Nets played well and came close to taking the first two games.

The 1998–99 season was delayed for three months due to an owners' lockout of the players. When the abbreviated 50-game season began, the Nets were a fashionable choice by experts as a surprise team after their previous run. However, Cassell was injured in the first game of the season and the team started poorly. With the Nets underachieving at 3–15, the Nets traded Cassell to the Bucks, while the Nets acquired Stephon Marbury from the Minnesota Timberwolves. After two more losses, Calipari was fired and replaced by assistant coach Don Casey. The team never recovered from its poor start to finish at 16–34. With the Nets already eliminated from playoff contention in April, Marbury collided with Williams in a game against the Atlanta Hawks; Williams broke his tibia, the second time he had suffered such an injury in two years, and would never play in the NBA again.

The team elected to retain Don Casey as head coach for the 1999–2000 season. The Nets started the season with what was then a franchise record low 2–15 record. They would improve after that, but once again, injuries plagued the team, and the Nets finished the season by losing their final 11 games of the year, finishing with a 31–51 record.

On June 2, 2000, the Nets hired as the team president Rod Thorn, a longtime NBA executive best known for drafting Michael Jordan while he was the Bulls' general manager. Immediately, he began to assemble the components of the franchise's most talented team since the ABA champions of the mid-1970s. He started by hiring former NBA star Byron Scott as coach. With the first pick in the notoriously weak 2000 draft, the Nets selected Kenyon Martin from the University of Cincinnati. Stephon Marbury and Keith Van Horn had become stars in New Jersey. Marbury made the All-NBA 3rd Team in 2000 and his very first All-Star Game in 2001. But despite his individual efforts, constant injuries hindered the team's chemistry and the Nets failed to reach to the playoffs in each of Marbury's seasons as a starter.

2001–2004: Making the Finals

On the night of the 2001 draft, the Nets traded the rights to their first-round selection (Eddie Griffin) to the Houston Rockets for Richard Jefferson, Jason Collins and Brandon Armstrong, and selected Brian Scalabrine in the second round. The trade was widely considered a smart move by the Nets as they needed to get younger and clear out much of the dead weight that was on the bench, as the Nets had the lowest scoring and oldest bench in the league the previous season.

One day after the draft, on June 28, 2001, Thorn traded all-star Stephon Marbury and role player Johnny Newman to the Phoenix Suns for all-star/All-NBA point Jason Kidd and Chris Dudley (whom the Nets later released). The move gave the team something it had been lacking for practically its entire NBA existence, a floor leader who made his teammates better. They also signed Todd MacCulloch, who was coming off a solid playoff run with the 76ers in which he shot 63% from the field in 18 games. The 2001–02 season turned out to be the best season in the team's NBA history, and in the process, the Nets became one of the most exciting teams in the league. The team won its first Atlantic Division Title, finishing 52–30 and seeded first in Eastern Conference and faced Indiana in the first round of the 2002 NBA playoffs.

After losing the first game at home, the Nets then won the next two games, before losing game four. In front of a home sellout crowd, the Nets led by nine points with five minutes left in regulation; however, Reggie Miller made a 35-foot three-pointer at the buzzer to send the game into overtime. After Miller sent the game into double-overtime with a driving dunk, the Nets pulled away for a 120–109 victory. It is the only game in NBA history to end every quarter tied.

In the Eastern Conference semifinals, they defeated the Charlotte Hornets four games to one to advance to the Eastern Conference Championship for the first time. They faced the Boston Celtics. This series is remembered for Kidd having his left eye swollen shut diving for a loose ball in game; he received 32 stitches. After they won game one, the Nets lost game two at home. In game three, the Nets led by 21 going into the fourth, but a Celtic comeback gave the Celtics a 94–90 victory and a 2–1 series lead. In game four, played on Memorial Day afternoon in Boston, the Nets led most of the way, but the Celtics tied the game with a minute remaining. However, the Nets made enough plays at the end of the game to win—Harris made two free throws with 6.6 seconds left and when Paul Pierce missed two free throws that would have tied the game with 1 second left, the series was tied at two games each. In game five, the Nets went on a 20–1 run early in the fourth quarter to coast to a 103–92 victory and a 3–2 lead in the series. In game 6, Van Horn's three pointer off a Kittles pass with 50 seconds left in the game clinched the Nets their first Eastern Conference Championship, four games to two. In the 2002 NBA Finals, the Nets were swept by Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers.

Before the 2002–03 season, the Nets traded Van Horn and MacCulloch to obtain Dikembe Mutombo from the 76ers. The move to improve the team did not work, as Mutombo sat out most of the season with a wrist injury, and received little time in the playoffs due to differences with coach Byron Scott. Despite Mutombo's absence, the Nets finished 49–33 and repeated as Atlantic Division Champions. Kidd in the process had his best season ever and contributions from Kenyon Martin, Richard Jefferson, and Sixth Man of The Year runner-up Lucious Harris. In the 2003 NBA playoffs, they won their second consecutive Eastern Conference Championship. They defeated the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs four games to two, then swept the Celtics and Detroit Pistons in consecutive series to advance to the 2003 NBA Finals, this time facing the Western Conference Champion San Antonio Spurs. They split the first four games in the series. At the same time, the Nets' home court hosted the New Jersey Devils third Stanley Cup celebration in nine years, following their 3–0 win over the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. However, the Nets played erratically in a Game 5 loss at home to go down in the series three games to two. In Game 6, the Nets led the Spurs by 10 points on the road with 10 minutes remaining, but the Spurs went on a 19–0 run to take the title in six games, which denied the state of New Jersey the distinction of having both NBA and NHL titles in the same year.

Following the 2003 Finals, Kidd became a free agent and the Spurs pursued him. However, Kidd re-signed with the Nets, stating that he had "unfinished business" in New Jersey. Another factor in Kidd's decision was the signing of free-agent Alonzo Mourning. But Mourning's tenure with the Nets would be disastrous, as he missed most of the 2003–04 season due to a kidney ailment.

During the 2003–04 season, New Jersey performed poorly early, and in late December head coach Byron Scott was fired. Lawrence Frank became the interim head coach in January, after serving as an assistant coach with the team since the 2000–01 season. The Nets rebounded from the early-season lull, and won a record 13 games to start Frank's coaching career, and again won the Atlantic Division title, and swept their crosstown rival Knicks in the first round. However, their run of Conference Championships was halted in the Eastern Conference semifinals by the eventual NBA champion Detroit Pistons. After the teams split the first four games, each won a large rout at home, the Nets took Game 5 in Detroit in triple-overtime, only to fall short in Game 6 in New Jersey. The Pistons won Game 7 in a rout and took the series 4 games to 3. Kidd, playing on an injured knee that required surgery after the season, was held scoreless in Game 7.

2004–2008: Kidd and Carter duo

After the season, the Nets revamped. They traded Kerry Kittles and Kenyon Martin to the Clippers and Nuggets respectively and released Rodney Rogers and longtime Net Lucious Harris, because new owner Bruce Ratner was unwilling to pay the remainder of their contracts. They received only draft picks in return for two key players in the team's recent success. Unbeknownst to New Jersey, however, was that Kittles had surgery for the fifth time to correct his knee, and Martin would need microfracture surgery in both knees. The 2004–05 season looked bad at first for the Nets. Kidd was recovering from his a microfracture surgery and Richard Jefferson was handed the reins to the team. They got off to a 2–11 start, and even with Kidd's return, the outlook was bleak. However, the Nets made a major deal and obtained star Vince Carter from the Toronto Raptors in exchange for Mourning, Eric Williams, Aaron Williams and draft picks. Mourning had become disgruntled, saying the Nets "betrayed" him and that New Jersey's progress to that point was not what he "signed up for". The move made the Nets major players again, as they featured one of the top 1–2–3's in the league with Kidd, Carter, and Jefferson respectively. However, it was short-lived, as Jefferson was injured against the Detroit Pistons, and required season-ending surgery.

However, teamed with Kidd, Carter rallied the team to gain the eighth and final seed in the Eastern Conference, after being more than 10 games out of the playoffs at one point, with a win in the last game of the season. Even with Jefferson back, however, they were swept by the Heat in the first round of the 2005 NBA playoffs.

During the off-season of 2005, the Nets pursued a starting-quality power forward through free agency. They had drafted Antoine Wright, and still needed to fill a void left by Kenyon Martin.

They signed Shareef Abdur-Rahim. To offer him a more lucrative contract, they pursued a sign-and-trade with the Portland Trail Blazers. In return for Abdur-Rahim, the Nets agreed to send Portland a protected first-round pick and use their trade exception acquired from the Kittles trade. However, Thorn decided to void the trade after Abdur-Rahim failed a physical examination because of a pre-existing knee injury. Abdur-Rahim initially denied any injury and said he felt he was treated like "damaged goods". Nonetheless, the knee issue would eventually force him into retirement after the 2008 season. To fill Abdur-Rahim's slot on the roster, the Nets acquired Marc Jackson from the Sixers.

They used part of the remaining mid-level exception to re-sign Clifford Robinson for two years in response to Brian Scalabrine's departure. A back-up to Kidd was also sought and they pursued free agents such as Keyon Dooling before they signed Jeff McInnis