Another summer has come and gone with another Nets season about to begin under the harvest moon. Media Day is on Monday and Training Camp begins on Tuesday. The Nets ought to hope the seeds planted in the dark over this long rebuild are finally ready to bear fruit in the light.
We’re calling it a new era in Nets basketball after an offseason filled with noise — both good and bad. We’ve said that plenty of times before, but this one is different and here’s why…
The Knicks won the NBA Finals and in less
than a month will raise a banner or two (they won the Emirates Cup as well.). It broke a cycle for Nets fans that might’ve been necessary in order for the organization to move on. Maybe not. I’ll get to that shortly.
Brooklyn’s offseason began inauspiously with the NBA lottery. You may not want to remember it, but afterwards, Joe Tsai’s son was seen hugging his dad, consoling him. But then they used the sixth pick to take Mikel Brown Jr. already a fan favorite after the Summer League. Days earlier, they traded Nicolas Claxton and the No. 33 pick for three-time All-Star Julius Randle and the No. 28 pick which became Joshua Jefferson.
Brooklyn added other system fits with marginal moves by signing Moritz Wagner and Keon Ellis, choosing a trio of young players, including the No. 43 pick, Tyler Bilodeau, for two-way slots. They enter training camp in a (so-far) peaceful stalemate with Michael Porter Jr. Then again, Egor Demin looked great at Summer League adding both muscle and confidence.
Off the court, the team is embracing its history more than ever. In 2020, we asked for these things and they’re doing them and more. We still don’t know what the next iteration of the Brooklyn Brigade will look like, however.
So where do we stand less than a month before Opening Night at Barclays Center and two days before Media Day? I’ve been getting questions regarding how I feel about the Knicks winning a Championship, among other things. It isn’t an easy question to answer because the timing was tinged by the personal as well as feelings far beyond the baselines.
My first Nets game was when I was five. My father bought season tickets in 2001 when Jason Kidd was traded to the team from the Suns. I watched the team my entire life, and the good people with the Nets gave me a credential to cover the team after one season with NetsDaily — I was 18. (We’ve had three younger fans cover the team since.)
I’m no seer, but I see the way the community talks to one another and engages and can get a sense of things. Experience does that to you. Some fans are more vocal than others, more opinionated, and sometimes more nasty. There’s purity taken out of being a Nets fan when you’re being told how you should be a fan, especially when it encourages losing. It’s annoying.
Then, it always feels like there’s a disconnect, an up-and-down wave moving fans from highs to lows, more shock than awe. The Nets ended the 2018-19 season as a surprise sixth seed, which led to the Clean Sweep, then the so-called Big 3 and then … oh never mind. We’re still dealing with that pain.
Now, after the tank, it’s a new era, but uncertain nonetheless. You have to hope this next chapter leaves Nets fans more optimistic and encouraging when there’s discourse. Still…
Rock Bottom, Real Life, and Reevaluating the Rivalry
There’s a reason I say this. For those of you who have followed me, agreed, disagreed, liked or disliked — I am opening up about this past year as a basketball fan rooted in fandom from New Jersey. But firstly I’m opening up as a human being here for the same reason as the rest of you all.
Personally, this past season was tough. I was working at a major social media company and NetsDaily when I started feeling pain that was debilitating and worse: it went undiagnosed for 3+ months. On January 9, 2026, I ended up in the hospital for four days with a projected three-month recovery period. When I returned, the job had disappeared. I watched the Nets, but they were well out of it at that point, so there was no relief there. They weren’t fun to watch and they weren’t good. And neither was I.
Truthfully, after the Winter Olympics wrapped up and my recovery dragged on, I just wanted to watch something good on TV.
The Nets weren’t that. The Flatbush 5 didn’t look great outside Egor Demin, and Michael Porter Jr. wasn’t much of a sell either. There was the issue of his baggage, which I felt compelled to write about. Of course, I watched! Just like 12-70 and every other Nets season. But this past year was just so blah. There was little about the present, all about the future. Again, toxic fan discourse mixed with losing and slow rebuilding just felt so unbecoming.
So did a Knicks playoffs run… at first.
I watched the Knicks prance through the playoffs, and at first it felt like salt in the wound! But no, it was not just salty. That’s a different feeling. It was downright grueling. I wasn’t alive for the ABA days, so there wasn’t much of a reference point but my pride as a Nets fan with all that up-and-down emotion was assaulted by what was happening at MSG.
The Nets and its fans have gotten totally hosed by the Knicks since the beginning. The reason the Nets lost Dr. J was because the Knicks gave them an expensive ultimatum once the NBA-ABA merger took place. Pay the Knicks a fee beyond what the other ABA teams had to pay or no NBA Since that very day, the teams have been competing for a championship even if the rivalry was absolutely dead in the water for decades! The Knicks won it because they built it the right way. No need to be jealous, just envious.
They did it the exact way the Nets would love to do it.
Something happened around playoff time. I was in a bar in North Carolina when I realized that nobody else in the bar was rooting for the Knicks. Mostly the opposite. So, for that night, I was a proud New York fan. I stopped allowing the division of the Nets-Knicks, Giants-Jets, Rangers-Islanders, and Mets-Yankees geographic rivalries. I dropped the nickname and colors of the teams. I just wanted New York sports fans to feel good about something.
When they won and I saw the video below, I knew the city I grew up in had finally gotten the trophy it deserved. I wouldn’t — couldn’t — claim it as my own. In fact, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see it — but I’m a proud New Yorker who grew up there playing ball in those streets, worked my first job there, etc. I’ve seen so many people online debate “What makes a New Yorker a New Yorker?” The answer is someone who doesn’t need to f—ing tell you they’re from New York. It’s obvious!
Even with that being said, it wasn’t about the city or state pride. I was just happy that humanity had something positive that we were all focusing on. A rare flash of collective monoculture we’d seemingly lost sight of in recent years.
Private Equity, Surveillance, and the Cost of Modern Fandom
There was a harsh reality in America that I couldn’t ignore either watching the Knicks parade and later this offseason. Like so many others, I was fighting for health insurance particularly after the Big Beautiful Bill kicked in. I was fighting unemployment and paying hospital bills. Basketball rivalries became quite secondary.
While I watched the Knicks win the championship, I couldn’t stop thinking about how hard it had become to afford basic necessities. My personal issues seemed in sync with those of New York Knick fans! I couldn’t believe diehard Knicks fans couldn’t afford playoff tickets — not just “low income” folks, but those middle-class diehards who have carried that franchise through FIVE inglorious decades of losing.
The media focused on Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Swift in the celebrity row seats, but those star-studded courtsides weren’t the cause of the price hikes, they were the billboard for MSG’s executive strategy. Dynamic pricing models, corporate seating allocations, and secondary broker markups transformed iconic arenas into luxury networking lounges, pricing out the very working-class culture that gave New York basketball its soul and its history. My father got a ticket for both Game 6 of the 1986 Mets World Series and Game 7 of the 1994 Rangers by chance. Back then, you could do that. These days, you’d get jumped for a free ticket.
Maybe those stories made me cynical. Times are different. Apples and oranges, you could argue, but it’s still insulting and it should be!
Seeing viral clips of celebrity fans like Chalamet lightheartedly joking that Nets fans belong on a “government watch list“ just highlighted how surreal and alienating the discourse had become. If the Knicks are so superior, why stoop so low to say such a thing? Chalamet of course wasn’t alone. And while he might have engaged in good-natured ribbing, there was a lot of others who were just plain mean.
Meanwhile, reports surfaced showing MSG using facial recognition surveillance to target and turn away attorneys for those in litigation with Dolan, critics, and unwanted spectators. This summer, more telling news of the franchise’s arrogance: the Knicks initially planned to charge $2,000 for the worst seats in the house on the night the team will finally raise its long-sought banner. Later they claimed it was a glitch. No one believed that.
And in the afterglow of Jalen Brunson and O.G. Anunoby’s great games, there was Dolan on TV saying he would not go over the second apron, not pay the money needed to key players while MSG Sports revenue jumped 37% and Dolan announced plans to spin off the Knicks and in all likelihood sell a big piece based on a valuation of a little less than $12 billion.
There are certain types of people who are hurting the game right now — and it’s happening across the entire league.
Look at Los Angeles. Mark Walter bought controlling interest in the Lakers at a $10 billion valuation, stripped away sentimentality, let LeBron walk, and then, under criminal investigation for fraud, flipped the franchise to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner for $12.5 billion. The Buss family is in court, fighting over who gets what for their remaining stake.
Down the road, Steve Ballmer’s Clippers got hit with a $30 million fine, lost five first-round picks, and Ballmer was suspended for a year over an off-the-books salary cap circumvention scandal with Kawhi Leonard (who because of a strong union and star power escaped virtually unscathed and wound up with a two-year, $115 million contract in Toronto.)
It’s hardly about basketball or civic pride anymore. It’s private equity, flip-and-profit portfolio management, and billionaires treating league rules like optional suggestions while everyday fans pay the bill financially and maybe more importantly, psychically.
Sure there have been controversies about Tsai, but as one insider said, they’re boring compared to what’s happening elsewhere, particularly in L.A. And you won’t find facial recognition equipment at Barclays Center.
Embracing Brooklyn’s Blank Slate
As noted, on a personal level, this macro shift hits against the backdrop of a brutal, humbling year. After facing sudden health scares, hospitalizations, and job loss while battling the harsh realities of the “system” , the escape of basketball took on a different meaning. While Nets fans have endured a long, cynical and cyclical rebuild — complete with toxic online discourse — watching the Knicks win a championship and see two million New Yorkers flood the streets triggered a moment of clarity.
Even as corporate interests, surveillance, and record-high ticket prices squeeze the working-class fan out of the arena, the core reason people love basketball remains human, and rooted in local pride.
That brings me back to the Nets. The Big 3 is over, the race to a championship and fighting with Knicks fans over it — it’s all done. Over. Finished. There is no race, nor does it seem there ever was one.
The Knicks winning the championship didn’t make Nets fans more bitter. It just made the rivalry feel less important.
But maybe the hostility amongst Nets fans can finally end. Maybe fans can come into Barclays Center, the new “ecosystem” for the Nets and Liberty, as basketball fans with an open mind. When the Nets are good and/or have a star who has a base, you can guarantee they’ll be back and they’ll be loud. For now, new fans and young fans are the target of the marketing guys.
It’s no diss to the Knicks or by any means, expensive tickets aren’t just inevitable, they’re permanent. Live events are luxury events. Jokes from TV commentators, social media, WFAN radio — wherever — can call them irrelevant and they are absolutely correct, at the moment. But there’s an uncomfortable fact for all of them: The Nets don’t really care. Sure, Joe Tsai famously and frankly said the Knicks win was “embarrassing” but in the same conversation with NetsDaily, he also said this:
“It doesn’t make us feel very good. It irritates our fan base and it is embarrassing but in business or in competition, in sports, or in anything, you shouldn’t let the embarrassment factor affect how you perform… [We] had a plan and we’re rebuilding and I think right now we are on a positive trajectory. So it doesn’t change my thinking at all.”
Those people who say the Nets should relocate — “go back to Jersey” — are also undermining the value of their own market, the New York market. Yes, even when their team is oversaturating the media ahead of ring night and 34 national television games — that’s exactly when a team like the Nets will sell. They are no longer running from it, they are embracing it. Whenever the Nets get there, it’ll be special. And hopefully it won’t be hijacked by billionaires or politicians.
The Knicks run gave me an appreciation for what matters most about the game — not the cap, corporate posturing, or arguing online over what constitutes a “real” fan, but the pure, simple ability to watch a young team grow from scratch. The past doesn’t matter because rock bottom already happened back in 2022 and 2023. They did that and they deserved their W. Maybe Brooklyn is next in a day that’s not so far away.
Nothing to Lose: Looking Ahead to the Games
This hasn’t been a perfect offseason. How could it be after the team next door just won the ultimate prize? The reality is harsh and the Nets are projected to win 24.5 games by the books in Las Vegas and 18 by ESPN. Rebuilding is never easy nor is it guaranteed to work.
At this point, it’s nice to see the Nets doing the things that matter to fans. They’re dedicating six nights to history, including a Swamp Dragons Night. I went to a Liberty game this summer (my first!) and I noticed the banners are almost all red, white, blue. The organization is embracing the ABA days with an alternative logo and a night dedicated to it. They’re also reportedly bringing back a fan-favorite: the coogi-trim uniforms.
There is some humility in the summer and in the offseason. There were lessons learned as a Nets fan, whether you cared about the Knicks winning or not. Whether you were pro-tank or anti-tank. We all want to feel that joy. As New Yorkers, as basketball fans, and more specifically fans within the Nets community. It won’t be an easy season but a positive perspective can change so much.
If they can build something fun this year behind a group of young players, specifically Brown Jr. and Demin, then fans will feel good again. The line, “Been down so long, it looks up to me” is literally the Nets fan getting up and watching the team this year.
There is nothing to lose. Might as well enjoy it.
