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The New Jersey Nets are a National
Basketball Association team based in East
Rutherford, New Jersey.
Home arenas
- Teaneck
Armory (1967-1968)
- Long
Island Arena (1968-1969)
- Island
Garden (1969-1971)
- Nassau
Coliseum (1971-1977)
- Louis
Brown Athletic Center (1977-1981)
- Continental
Airlines Arena (1981-present)
Franchise history
1967 to 1976 - The ABA Years
The franchise was established in
1967
as part of the American
Basketball Association. Originally called the
New Jersey Americans, the team played its
first season in the Teaneck
(N.J.) Armory,
before changing its name and location (to Long
Island) to become the New
York Nets. The team was renamed to "Nets" to
rhyme with two other professional sports team in
New
York: the New
York Mets and New
York Jets.
In 1972,
two years after the acquisition of star Rick
Barry, the Nets advanced to the ABA finals.
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
- 1973
season was one of disappointment, as the Nets only
won 30 games. In the 1973
offseason, however, the Nets acquired Julius
Erving, known as "Dr. J" from the Virginia
Squires.
In 1973-1974,
with Erving, the Nets dramatically improved their
record, ending the season with 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 following
season they won 58 games in the regular season,
but were eliminated, four games to one, by the Spirits
of St. Louis in the first round of the 1975
ABA playoffs. The team rebounded in the 1975-1976
season, 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 six games, giving them their second championship
in three years.
1976 to 1980 - Move to the NBA
and to New Jersey
During the summer of 1976, the ABA
and NBA merged. As part of the merger agreement,
four teams from the ABA -- including the Nets --
joined the NBA. However, before the Nets played
a game in the NBA, they sold the rights to Erving
to the Philadelphia
76ers for $3 million, ending a highly successful
period in their history. The Nets finished their
first season in the NBA with the worst record in
the league at 22-60.
Prior to the 1977-1978 season, team
owner Roy Boe relocated the franchise back to New
Jersey, renaming the team the New Jersey
Nets. While the team awaited the completion
of a new arena at the Meadowlands
Sports Complex, they played four seasons at
the Louis
Brown Athletic Center on the campus of Rutgers
University. In 1978, Boe sold the team to a
group of seven local businessmen (led by Joe
Taub and Alan Cohen) who became known as the
"Secaucus
Seven". The first four years in New Jersey were
disappointing, as the Nets suffered through four
consecutive losing seasons.
The 1980s
The team moved into the Brendan
Byrne Arena (now known as Continental
Airlines Arena) in 1981 and experienced modest
success with four consecutive winning seasons. In
1982-1983, 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 relieved of his coaching duties. The Nets
would never recover from the coaching change and
would lose in the first round of the playoffs.
In the 1983-1984 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 playoffs before
falling to the Milwaukee
Bucks in the Eastern
Conference semifinals in six games.
Injuries plagued the team during
the 1984-1985 season, but the Nets still managed
to win 42 games before being eliminated from the
1985 playoffs by the Detroit
Pistons in three games. The Nets would not qualify
for the playoffs for the next seven seasons (1991-1992)
and would not have a winning record for eight (1992-1993).
The 1990s
During the early 1990s the Nets
began to improve behind a core of young players,
as New Jersey drafted Derrick
Coleman and Kenny
Anderson and acquired the late Drazen
Petrovic in a trade with the Portland
Trail Blazers. Despite a losing record during
the 1991-1992 season, the Nets qualified for the
playoffs, losing to the Cleveland
Cavaliers in the first round, three games to
one.
The team improved significantly
in 1992-1993, led by the trio of Coleman, Petrovic
and Anderson and new head coach Chuck
Daly. However, injuries to both Anderson and
Petrovic 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 and were seeded
sixth in the Eastern Conference and faced the Cavaliers
again in the first round. With Anderson recovered
from a broken hand and Petrovic playing on an injured
knee, the Nets lost a tough five-game series. However,
the optimism of a team jelling was destroyed on
June
7, when Petrovic was killed in an automobile
accident in Germany at the age of 28.
Depite the devastaing loss of Petrovic,
the Nets managed to win 45 games during the 1993-1994
season, losing to the New
York Knicks the first round of the 1994 NBA
Playoffs, three games to one. Daly resigned as head
coach after the season and was replaced by Butch
Beard.
The team 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 if one wanted to see a team that embodied
that image, all one had to do was look at the Nets.
In 1995, Coleman was featured on the cover of Sports
Illustrated as the poster child of the selfish
NBA player, but with Anderson, Benoit
Benjamin, Dwayne
Schintzius and Chris
Morris also on the roster, there were plenty
of candidates for SI to choose from. The team's
image was so poor that in an effort to shed its
losing image, management considered renaming the
team "Swamp Dragons" in 1995, but rejected the idea.
In both the 1994-95 and 1995-96 seasons, the Nets
finished with identical 30-52 records.
In an effort to start anew, Coleman
and Anderson were both traded during the 1995-96
season and John
Calipari replaced Beard as head coach at the
end of the season. 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 win-loss 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 was a lone bright
spot for the Nets in the late 1990s. The team played
well under Calipari, winning 43 games and qualifying
for the playoffs on the last day of the season.
The Nets were seeded eighth in the Eastern Conference
and lost to the Chicago
Bulls in the 1998 playoffs in three straight
games.
The "Secaucus Seven" sold the team
in 1998 to local real estate developers, who the
next year signed an agreement with New
York Yankees owner George
Steinbrenner to form YankeeNets,
a holding company that would own the two teams along
with increasing leverage in future broadcast contracts
by negotiating together. After getting offers from
numerous broadcast partners, including what was
their current rights holder Cablevision,
YankeeNets decided to launch a new regional sports
television called YES
Network.
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. However, Cassell was injured in the first
game 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 as head coach with the team at 3-17. 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
and would never play for the Nets again.
The 2000s
In 2000, the Nets hired as the team
president Rod
Thorn, who was best known for being the Bulls
General Manager who drafted Michael
Jordan and an executive with the NBA. Immediately,
he began to assemble the components of the most
talented team since the ABA champions of the mid-1970s.
With the first pick in the 2000
Draft, the Nets selected Kenyon
Martin from the University
of Cincinnati. On the night of the 2001
Draft, they traded the rights to their first
round selection (Eddie
Griffin) to the Houston
Rockets for their draft selections -- Richard
Jefferson, Jason
Collins and Brandon
Armstrong.
Just after the 2001 draft, Thorn
made his boldest move. He traded all-star Marbury
to the Phoenix
Suns for another all-star point guard Jason
Kidd. The move gave the team something it had
been lacking for practically its entire NBA existence,
a floor leader who also made his teammates better.
That next season the Nets had their
best season in their NBA history. The team won its
first Atlantic Division title, finishing the regular
season at 52-30 and were 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 went on to win the next two games,
before losing game four on the road. In front of
a sellout crowd, the Nets played one of the more
memorable games in NBA Playoff history in game five.
The Nets led by nine points with five minutes remaining
in regulation, however Reggie
Miller made a 35-foot three-pointer at the buzzer
to send the game into overtime (it should be noted
that replays later showed that Miller's shot was
actually after the buzzer and therefore shouldn't
have counted). After Miller sent the game into double-overtime
with a driving dunk, the Nets pulled away for a
120-109 victory.
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
facing the Boston
Celtics. After winning game one versus the Celtics,
the Nets lost game two at home. In game three, the
Nets led by 21 points going into the final period,
but a tremendous 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 once again the Celtics found a way to
tie the game with a minute remaining. However, in
this game the Nets made enough plays at the end
of the game to win it - 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 period to coast
to a 103-92 victory and a 3-2 lead in the series.
In game 6, the Nets trailed by 10 at halftime, but
rallied in the second half to take the lead. Van
Horn's three pointer off a Kittles pass with 50
seconds left in the game clinched the Nets 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 in four games.
Before the 2002-03 season, the Nets
traded Van Horn to obtain Dikembe
Mutombo from the 76ers. The move to improve
the team did not work out as Mutombo sat out most
of the season with a wrist injury. Despite Mutombo's
absence, the Nets finished with a 49-33 record and
repeated as Atlantic Division champs. In the 2003
NBA Playoffs, the Nets won their second consecutive
Eastern Conference championship. The defeated the
Bucks in the first round of the playoffs four games
to two, then swept the Celtics and 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, but 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.
Following the 2003
Finals, Kidd became a free agent and the Spurs pursued
signing him away from the Nets. However, Kidd re-signed
with the Nets, along with center Alonzo
Mourning.
In 2004,
The Nets again won the Atlantic Division title,
however their run of conference championships was
halted in the Eastern Conference Semifinals by the
eventual NBA
champion Detroit
Pistons. The Nets stole Game 5 in Detroit in
triple overtime, only to blow a huge lead early
in Game 6 in New
Jersey. The Pistons won Game 7 in a rout and
took the series 4 games to 3. Jason
Kidd, playing on an injured knee that eventually
required surgery after the season, was held scoreless
in Game 7.
In 2005,
after two disappointing seasons, the Nets acquired
disgruntled star Vince
Carter from the Toronto
Raptors in exchange for Mourning, who was predictably
released by the Raptors (and subsequently rejoined
the Miami
Heat), Aaron Williams and draft picks. Teamed
with Kidd, Carter rallied the team from being more
than 10 games out of the playoffs to gain the final
seed in the Eastern
Conference. However, the Nets could not overcome
O'Neal
again and were swept by the Heat in the First Round
of the 2005
NBA Playoffs.
During the offseason of 2005, the
Nets actively pursued a starting-quality power forward
to fill that void after drafting Antoine
Wright, a 6' 7" swingman because all the talented
power forwards were taken in the draft.
Eventually settling on Shareef
Abdur-Rahim, they actively courted him and gained
his approval even though they could only offer him
the mid-level exception. In order to get him a larger,
more lucrative contract, the Nets pursued a sign-and-trade
with Portland. There, negotiations hit a snag because
Portland demanded a first-round draft pick, which
the Nets adamantly refused to part with. Eventually,
the Nets agreed to give Portland a protected first-round
pick and their trade exception acquired from the
Kerry Kittles trade. This allowed the Nets to keep
their mid-level exception for signing other players.
However, Thorn decided to void the Abdur-Rahim trade
when he failed his physical examination because
of a pre-existing knee injury. 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 actively courted free agents
such as Keyon
Dooling before turning their attention to talented,
but aggravating (at times) Jeff
McInnis, whom they eventually signed.
The Nets started the 2005-06 season
slowly, struggling to a 9-12 record in the first
21 games. However, behind strong play by Carter,
Kidd & Jefferson the team won the last 10 games
(their final 8 games in December and first two games
in January). As of February
21, 2006,
the Nets are 29-23, with a 4 game lead over Philadelphia
in the Atlantic Division and in 3rd place in the
Eastern Conference standings.
New Jersey's Vince Carter has been
named to the All Star Reserves.
Planned Relocation to Brooklyn
In 2004,
after failing to secure a deal for a new arena in
Newark,
New Jersey, YankeeNets
sold the franchise to a group headed by real estate
developer Bruce
Ratner. In 2005 the Nets announced plans to
to move the team back to New
York, this time locating the team in the Fort
Greene neighborhood of Downtown
Brooklyn.
The Brooklyn
Nets Arena is the center of an extensive redevelopment
project in Atlantic Yards being built by Ratner's
real estate development company. Ironically, the
site of the arena is the same site that Walter
O'Malley wanted to use for a new stadium for
the Brooklyn
Dodgers in the early 1950s.
The plan was rejected and resulted in the team's
relocation to Los
Angeles in 1957.
The Nets would be the first major professional sports
team to play their games in Brooklyn since the departure
of the Dodgers.
The arena is in the final planning
stages and if approved, the Nets would move across
the Hudson
River for the 2008-2009
season. However, delays in the project make a move
in 2008 unlikely. A February 10, 2006 article in
the Newark Star-Ledger reported that the team and
the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority are
in negotiations in regards to a new lease to keep
the team in the Meadowlands until the Brooklyn arena
is completed.
In the event the Brooklyn arena
project is rejected, the State of New Jersey had
offered to move the Nets into the Newark
Arena, currently under construction for the
New
Jersey Devils. Ironically, this is the same
proposed arena site that the Nets considered while
part of YankeeNets.
However, it is unclear whether the team would choose
to stay at the Meadowlands by themselves or share
an arena with the Devils. The Star-Ledger article
stated that Net management has indicated that staying
in the Meadowlands is their top alternative to the
Brooklyn arena.
If the Nets ultimately do not move
to Brooklyn, it is unknown if Ratner would continue
to own the team in New Jersey or put the team up
for sale, since the arena project was the main reason
he bought the team.
Players of note
- Nate
Archibald - played one season with Nets, 1976-77,
the last season on Long Island
- Rick
Barry - played for the Nets only while the
team was a member of the ABA
- Julius
Erving - played for the Nets only while the
team was a member of the ABA
- Drazen
Petrovic - played 3 seasons for the Nets,
died in a car accident after Nets were eliminated
from 1993 NBA Playoffs
Not to be forgotten:
Retired numbers:
- 3 - Drazen
Petrovic, G, 1990-93
- 4 - Wendell
Ladner, F, 1974-75
- 23 - John
Williamson, G, 1973-80
- 25 - Bill
Melchionni, G, 1969-76
- 32 - Julius
Erving, F, 1973-76
- 52 - Buck
Williams, F, 1981-89
Coaches and others
Not to be forgotten:
References
- Kipp, Guy (2002) From Julius to Jason - The
Fall and Rise of the New Jersey Nets ISBN
1-58939-333-3
External links
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