I used to be born and raised in Manhattan, simply a couple years earlier than the New Jersey Nets leapt instantly from the basement to consecutive NBA Finals appearances. I bear in mind Mikki Moore as my energy ahead, not Kenyon Martin, and I by no means skilled or felt notably related to the Jersey Pride dripping off the very best Nets groups of the early 2000s.
I perceive now that was a excellent marriage between franchise and fanbase, if not economically, then spiritually. The nation’s most insecure state embraced a small-market crew that all the time beat the Knicks and Celtics, whose success was repeatedly name-checked in The Sopranos, however remained firmly the underdog. The crew began successful after they traded the “selfish,” NYC-born Stephon Marbury for Jason Kidd, who ran — what else? — the Princeton offense dutifully. And because of the league’s finest protection, Kidd acquired to throw loads of dazzling, no-look passes in transition.
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The Nets have been powerful, basically sound, and flashy, in that order. New Jersey’s self-conscious satisfaction swelled, and exhibits you how weak the Eastern Conference is turned the NBA equal of it’s simply a freeway surrounded by factories.
You doubtless know the remainder of the story, but when not, Secret Base has a refresher on the remainder of the Jersey years…
Now they’re the Brooklyn Nets, taking part in their dwelling video games at Barclays Center, which sits on the sting of Prospect Heights. Bruce Ratner’s imaginative and prescient, partially, got here true. Today, Barclays Center — in contrast to the Nets’ earlier houses — is reliably full even when the crew isn’t good, this yr reporting a median attendance of 17,404 per sport, or 99.18% of its listed capability.
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Most of these 17,404 are usually not Nets followers. If a star participant like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or Giannis Antetokounmpo is on the visiting crew — to not point out the LeBron James/Steph Curry class — the constructing bursts with their jerseys. This can be true for regional opponents just like the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks, boasting big fanbases that all the time journey effectively. Earlier this season, Jaylen Brown acquired “M-V-P” chants on the ’Clays.
Obviously, the Nets have been very unhealthy during the last three seasons. They now not have star-power on the roster. It’s no secret that the franchise’s transfer to Brooklyn solely introduced them deeper into Knicks-occupied territory, however the present state of the crew performs a function right here too.
Former Nets Bruce Brown and Theo Pinson described the gang dynamic very effectively on the latter’s podcast a couple years in the past…
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Speaking in regards to the 2021 playoff setting: “Their fans just love basketball. They’re there for the game. Like sometimes, it’s not for just Brooklyn, they’re just there for the game … They want to see a good basketball game. They want to see dunks, they’ll cheer for anybody, they don’t care who team you on.”
D’Angelo Russell echoed the sentiment final season: “They’re ready to just blow the roof off this place if you give them a reason. That may be for the opposing team, they may give them that reason a lot of the time. Or we can.”
When the Nets have been briefly a successful crew led by recognizable superstars, the gang was behind them. They additionally attracted extra younger followers within the Clean Sweep years, particularly their most impressionable targets: the youngsters of millennial transplants.
But whether or not the Brooklyn Nets are good or unhealthy at any given second hardly impacts the broader dialog about their fanbase…
(Notice that this clip from The Zach Lowe Show comes through a New York Knicks fan account, reveling within the most cost-effective technique to unite their followers whereas extracting argumentative replies.)
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So a lot handwringing over the Nets’ fanbase, however so little about what it means to truly be a Nets fan, 20 years eliminated the height of the fandom’s native satisfaction. Blogger extraordinaire Ock Sportello is the leader of the style — this post titled Who Are Nets Fans? specifically is a basic, explaining the “gentrifier’s anxiety” that now unites each crew and fanbase.
These are the pathologies that situation Nets fandom. We are followers of the crew who blacked out the stands upon shifting, a transfer that not by the way obscured how few individuals attended video games. We are followers who ask, with bated breath, how the gang seemed or sounded on any given evening.
About a month in the past, I used to be on CT Rail, watching a nationally televised Cavs-Knicks sport on my laptop computer. An exuberant ticket-checker observed, asking me what the rating was. I replied and talked about that Jalen Brunson had simply made three photographs in a row. I observed the Knicks pin affixed to her shirt as she complained about Karl-Anthony Towns and having to maneuver from town to Connecticut. I advised her I didn’t envy her. She chuckled and stated “at least Brunson’s got us this year,” at which level I advised her I couldn’t watch for the playoffs, which hey, that’s the reality.
The ticket-checker strolled away. My girlfriend, sitting within the window seat, known as me a title I’m not going to repeat right here.
Can Nets followers be proud? Does that satisfaction have to come back from rooting for a crew that performs in the identical borough the place Jean-Michel Basquiat and Christopher Wallace have been born over a half-century in the past, because the group so typically reminds us?
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Perhaps that satisfaction can sound like Josh Minott did after the Nets misplaced to the Knicks final Thursday. Visibly distraught, he sat on the podium and gave essentially the most well-received postgame presser a Net has had in years.
“I wanted that s*** so f****** bad,” he started.
“Ever since we’ve been here, it’s like every game is an away game, you know? Tonight was just the night to really just stick it to everybody, man. As an organization, as a team, to show people that we got s**** here, yo. Man, just a sea of blue, a sea of orange. Every game we play, it’s a sea of the other team, and I saw it here when I was on the Celtics. But being here, it’s like, I got nothing but respect for the real fans, like, the real Brooklyn fans. Shout out to them, you know, because I know it’s tough being outnumbered every single game. But I really feel like what we have here isn’t b***s***. Like, we have pieces here. I’ve seen it. That’s what this ‘rivalry’ meant to me.”
Yes, Minott put the phrase “rivalry” in air quotes. After posting the reply on social media, I acquired dozens of messages and replies identical to this, with many followers half-jokingly calling Minott their new favourite participant…
Minott did not deny the truth of taking part in dwelling video games at Barclays, notably for a unhealthy crew. He did not attempt to discuss up a rivalry with the crew whose followers simply infiltrated the constructing, as a substitute admitting that it stinks. That’s rather more palatable than the meek “it is what it is,” sort of platitude Mikal Bridges went with when he was nonetheless in Brooklyn, and it’s rather more respectable than attempting to effectively really Knicks followers on the Internet.
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Minott was brutally trustworthy and defiantly proud to be a Net. That’s an ultra-rare mixture, and he pulled it off throughout a season that may finish with 17 wins. In Who Are Nets Fans?, Ock Sportello noticed that, “We know that we are alone, then, but only we can say it.”
Well … what if Nets followers didn’t care who stated it. One of their very own gamers simply did, and it was the preferred quote of the season. The Nets won’t tank perpetually. At some level, they are going to, in Minott’s phrases, get a probability to stay it to everyone.
There’s your satisfaction.
