Decades

Tom Dowd

At the start of a new decade, the Nets took the first steps toward a new era.

They left their longtime home in the Meadowlands for Newark’s Prudential Center, but that was just a two-year stopover as they awaited the completion of their brand-new arena in Brooklyn. Along the way, two blockbuster deals formed the foundation for the team that would debut at Barclays Center in 2012.

In February 2011, the Nets acquired two-time All-NBA point guard Deron Williams from the Utah Jazz. In his first full season with the franchise the next year, Williams averaged 21.0 points and 8.7 assists and made his third straight All-Star Game appearance. On April 23, 2012, the Nets closed out their 35-year run in New Jersey with their final home game in the state.

Two months later, the Nets acquired six-time NBA All-Star Joe Johnson, putting a premier backcourt in place when the Brooklyn Nets made their debut at Barclays Center with a 107-100 win over the Toronto Raptors on Nov. 3, 2012.

A month later, Johnson drained a buzzer-beating jumper to edge the Pistons in double-overtime, the first of five he would hit in four seasons with the Nets, building a legend for clutch finishes.

After the Nets closed their first season in Brooklyn with their first playoff appearance since 2007 — finishing the season with a 35-19 run after P.J. Carlesimo replaced Avery Johnson as coach in December and finishing 49-33 to match the second-best NBA record in franchise history — more big moves were in the offing. The team dealt a slew of draft picks to the Boston Celtics for a package of players headlined by Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, and Nets legend Jason Kidd was hired as head coach.

They returned to the playoffs and won their first playoff series since 2007 before being defeated by the eventual champion Miami Heat in the second round, but after the season both Kidd and Pierce departed. Midway through the next season, Garnett was dealt away as well.

The first stage in Brooklyn featured All-Star Game appearances by Brook Lopez in 2013 and Johnson in 2014 and three straight playoff appearances, but the bottom soon dropped out as the Nets went 21-61 in 2015-16, the first of three straight 20-something win seasons.

The first seeds of a resurgence came in February 2016 with the opening of the HSS Training Center, bringing the team’s basketball operations to Brooklyn in their entirety, and the hiring of GM Sean Marks. Two months later, Marks hired Kenny Atkinson as the team’s head coach.

They built the foundation of a playoff team with heady free agent signings — Joe Harris and Spencer Dinwiddie — and savvy late draft picks — Caris LeVert and Jarrett Allen. With guard D’Angelo Russell putting together an All-Star season in 2018-19, the Nets went from 20 wins in Atkinson’s first season to 42 in his third, returning to the playoffs.

The quick turnaround attracted attention throughout the league, and the Nets followed up by signing three All-NBA players — Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and DeAndre Jordan — to set the stage for the next step.

the-2010s-hello-brooklyn

The 2010s: Hello Brooklyn

For the second time in the team’s history, a single trade changed everything for the Nets.

On July 18, 2001, the Nets sent Stephon Marbury, Johnny Newman and Soumaila Samake to the Phoenix Suns and received Jason Kidd in return.

Over his 6½ seasons with the Nets, Kidd would be named to two All-NBA First Teams and one Second Team, six NBA All-Defensive Teams and five NBA All-Star games. The Nets would reach their first NBA Finals and then return the following year, going on to six straight playoff appearances.

The turnaround was immediate. With Kidd at the controls, the Nets won seven of their first eight games to start the 2001-02 season. They doubled their win total in finishing 52-30 to win their first division title.

Kidd was not the only addition to the lineup. Guard Kerry Kittles returned after missing the 2000-01 season with a knee injury to shoot 40 percent from 3-point range. Rookie Richard Jefferson was a first-round pick acquired in a draft-night trade who excelled in a sixth-man role. Starting center Todd MacCulloch was signed as a free agent and formed a solid pivot pair with Jason Collins, who also came over in the Jefferson trade.

The pieces fit perfectly, with Kidd directing a free-flowing balanced offense that had Kenyon Martin as the leading scorer with just 14.9 points per game, with Van Horn right behind at 14.8 and Kidd averaging 14.7.

“He had an uncanny knack for what had to be done to get the ball in the basket,” said Nets official scorer Herb Turetzky. “Not by his hand, by somebody else’s. And he was with a group of guys that could run that floor with him like a herd of deer. And they knew if they would get open, he was going to find them. Richard Jefferson, Kerry Kittles, Kenyon Martin, later on Vince Carter. Even Jason Collins got down the floor. He had an uncanny knack for finding them in the right spots. And the ball came just at the right time.”

A six-game victory over the Boston Celtics in the conference finals sent the Nets to the 2002 NBA Finals where they fell to the Los Angeles Lakers, who won their third straight title behind Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant.

There were minor changes over the summer. The trade of Van Horn and MacCulloch to Philadelphia opened up a spot in the starting lineup for Jefferson. The Nets repeated as division champs and sweeps of Boston and Detroit gave them 10 straight playoff wins going into an NBA Finals matchup with the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise’s first NBA title eluded the Nets again as Tim Duncan and the Spurs won the second of their five championships.

In December 2004, Nets GM Rod Thorn made another deal that shook the NBA, acquiring Vince Carter from Toronto. With two All-NBA selections and five straight NBA All-Star Game appearances, the dynamic swingman was one of the league’s most exciting offensive talents.

Over 4½ seasons with the Nets, Carter averaged 23.6 points, 5.8 rebounds and 4.7 assists. The following year the Nets won their fourth division title in five years while matching their second-best NBA record with a 49-33 finish.

As the era came to a close — Kidd, Jefferson, and Carter were all traded within 16 months — the Nets began their final season at the Meadowlands in the fall of 2009. The future pointed in a new direction.

the-2000s-jason-kidd-and-the-nba-finals

The 2000s: Jason Kidd and the NBA Finals

The Nets closed the 1980s with the worst record of their first 14 NBA seasons, giving them a prize to get the 1990s started the right way: with the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft.

With it, they grabbed Syracuse forward Derrick Coleman. With the franchise sporting a new logo and uniforms, Coleman led the team into a new era as he was named the NBA’s Rookie of the Year after averaging 18.4 points and 10.3 rebounds per game.

“He had more tools than anyone with that size; 6-10, ambidextrous,” said Herb Turetzky, the Nets’ official scorer since their inaugural season. “He’d throw full-court passes with either hand. There was nothing he couldn’t do. He’d shoot 15-foot jump shots with the right hand. Rebound, pass, dribble. There was nothing he couldn’t do when he wanted to do it.”

In the first six months of 1991, the Nets added two more pieces that would fit with Coleman to fuel a quick turnaround. Croatian sharpshooter Drazen Petrovic came in a trade with Portland in January. In June, point guard Kenny Anderson, a New York high school legend at Archbishop Molloy, was selected with the second pick in the NBA Draft.

The Nets improved by 14 wins in 1991-92, returning to the playoffs for the first time since 1986. The following summer saw the arrival of two-time NBA champion Chuck Daly as head coach, fresh off his gold-medal trip to the Barcelona Olympics with the Dream Team.

In 1992-93, Coleman averaged a career high 20.7 points with 11.2 rebounds per game. Anderson, in his first season as a full-time starter, averaged 16.9 points with 8.2 assists per game.

Petrovic, who had come into his own the year before, averaged 22.3 points per game, was third in the NBA shooting 45 percent from 3-point range and, along with Coleman, was named to the All-NBA third team, the franchise’s first All-NBA selections since Buck Williams 10 years earlier.

But in June 1993 Petrovic, a free agent, was tragically killed in a car accident in Germany. He was 28 years old.

“He was the future,” said Turetzky. “Even though there were a lot of thoughts he wasn’t coming back, he did indicate to us that he felt he was. And I hoped he was. We loved having him here and he loved being here.”

The Nets returned to the playoffs in 1994, finishing 45-37, their most wins in a decade and the second-best record in their NBA history to that point. Anderson notched career highs with 18.8 points and 9.6 assists per game. Both Anderson and Coleman were selected to start in the NBA All-Star Game, the first Nets to do so.

But Daly resigned after the season, the Nets missed the playoffs in 1995, and during the 1995-96 season both Coleman and Anderson were traded.

John Calipari arrived as head coach after the 1996 season, and in 1997-98 the Nets improved by 17 wins to finish 43-39 and return to the playoffs.

The Nets’ leading scorer in 1997-98 was rookie forward Keith Van Horn, acquired in an eight-player draft night trade after being selected second overall. Guard Kerry Kittles, the Nets’ first round pick a year earlier, was third in scoring with 17.2 points per game. Jayson Williams averaged 12.9 points and 13.6 rebounds, second in the NBA.

Calipari’s tenure ended after a dismal start to the 1998-99 season, but in Kittles and Van Horn the Nets had two of the pieces in place that would soon spark a revival.

the-1990s-fast-start-fades-but-a-stage-is-set

The 1990s: Fast Start Fades, but a Stage is Set

The 1980s dawned for the New Jersey Nets with promise, as the franchise nabbed four top 10 picks over the first two NBA Drafts of the decade as they prepared to move into a new home: Brendan Byrne Arena in New Jersey’s Meadowlands complex, adjacent to Giants Stadium.

Buck Williams, Albert King, Mike O’Koren and Mike Gminski would combine to play 29 seasons with the Nets, forming the core of the club for much of the decade along with Otis Birdsong, who played seven seasons for the Nets after being acquired in a 1981 trade.

The Nets would also add entertaining stars Micheal Ray Richardson and Darryl Dawkins as they made five straight playoff appearances from 1982 to 1986.

“It was an exciting decade,” said long-time Nets official scorer Herb Turetzky. “To me, it was stability. The Atlantic Coast Conference. Gminski, O’Koren, Buck Williams. Albert King. All stable programs. Solid, national programs. Good, solid players. Darryl came in and gave us a little more in the middle.”

As they moved into their new arena for the 1981-82 season, leaving behind the Rutgers Athletic Center after four years, the Nets featured a foundation of second-year forwards O’Koren and Gminski, rookies Williams and King, and Birdsong, an All-Star each of the three previous seasons with the Kansas City Kings.

They also had a new coach in place. Like the Nets, Larry Brown had his roots in the ABA with five years as a player before becoming a coach. Brown had coached the Denver Nuggets against the Nets in the final ABA championship series before spending two seasons at UCLA.

In their first season under Brown at the Meadowlands, the Nets made a 20-win improvement over the season before, jumped to fourth in the NBA in attendance, and made their second NBA playoff appearance, losing to Washington in the best-of-three first round.

“It was very exciting,” said Turetzky. “We were out in no place at Rutgers. Here we were eight miles from Manhattan, which alone almost sounds like you could walk it. A brand-new building, an 18,000-seat arena built for us.”

Going into the 1982-83 season, the Nets added the backboard-breaking Dawkins, then picked up Richardson in a mid-season trade with Golden State. The dynamic point guard was a three-time All-Star who had led the NBA in assists once and steals three times.

With an 11-game winning streak in December and January, the Nets won 49 games, a franchise NBA record until 2002 and still the second-most in an NBA season in team history. Seven players averaged double figures in scoring, with Williams leading the way with 17.0 points and 12.5 rebounds per game.

Brown, however, didn’t make it to the end of the season after interviewing for the University of Kansas job late in the year. Bill Blair took over as coach for the final six games, and the Nets fell in the first round of the playoffs.

Returning the same core the following year under new coach Stan Albeck, the Nets won 45 games and stunned the defending champion Philadelphia 76ers in the first round of playoffs for their first NBA playoff series win. Dawkins averaged 18.4 points in the series, Richardson had 16.8 points and 7.2 assists per game and Williams added 15.5 points and 14.1 rebounds.

The Nets returned to the playoffs each of the next two seasons, with Dave Wohl replacing Albeck as coach before the 1985-86 season. Midway through the season, the Nets lost Richardson, banned from the NBA for substance abuse. They didn’t return to the playoffs until 1992.

The rugged and reliable Williams was the defining Net of the decade, and one of the most accomplished in franchise history. He remained with the Nets through the 1988-89 season, and left as the franchise leader in games played, points and rebounds.

The Rookie of the Year in 1982 and a three-time All-Star, Williams averaged 16.4 points and 11.9 rebounds over his eight seasons with the Nets. Traded to Portland, he was named to the NBA All-Defensive team twice and helped lead the Trail Blazers to NBA Finals appearances in 1990 and 1992.

“He was loved by fans,” said Turetzky. “He would stay and sign, do appearances, whatever he could do. Charles Linwood ‘Buck’ Williams. He was a special one.”

the-1980s-off-to-the-meadowlands-and-on-to-the-playoffs

The 1980s: Off to the Meadowlands and on to the Playoffs

The 1970s opened with two major additions to the Nets franchise. Lou Carnesecca arrived as head coach and the team acquired Rick Barry.

At 22 years old, Barry had been the NBA’s leading scorer with 35.6 points per game before jumping to the ABA. But he’d had to sit out one season in a legal battle, played one year in Oakland before the team relocated to Washington, D.C., and now he was a Net.

“His shooting skills were tremendous,” said Herb Turetzky, then and now the Nets’ official scorer. “He could jump, rebound, pass beautifully. And again, for the red, white and blue ball, perfect. Perfect form and rotation. To watch that ball go off of his hands was magic.”

Barry is still the franchise’s career leader in scoring average with 30.6 points per game in his two years with the Nets before he jumped back to the NBA. In 1971-72 Barry and Carnesecca led the team to the ABA finals, where they lost to the Indiana Pacers in six games. That same season, the Nets left Island Garden to move into the brand-new Nassau Coliseum.

After that, Barry was gone. When the team dropped to 30-54 the following year, so was Carnesecca, back to St. John’s.

The team rebounded quickly under Kevin Loughery, the longest-tenured coach in team history with seven-plus seasons. With the acquisition of ABA scoring leader Julius Erving and rookies John Williamson and Larry Kenon, the Nets won 55 games and their first ABA title, defeating the Utah Stars in five games.

Erving led the league in scoring and went on to win three ABA MVP awards with the Nets. In 1974-75, the team won a franchise-record 58 games, but was upset in the playoffs by the Spirits of St. Louis. The Nets retooled for the 1975-76 season, dealing off Kenon and Billy Paultz.

“The key guys were really Soup (Super John Williamson) and Doc,” said Turetzky. “It was his game. Kevin would just give it to Doc to go. The second play was LA-23. That was Soup. John, you just take the ball and do what you want to do. One on one, it was his ball. That’s how they did it.”

As the Nets charged toward their second ABA title in 1975-76, the league was crumbling around them. Two of the 10 teams folded before the season began; another dropped out during the year.

As he had two years earlier, Erving turned in an epic playoff performance. He averaged 37.7 points in the six-game championship series win against the Denver Nuggets. The Nets came back from 22 points down in the second half to clinch Game 6, with Williams scoring 24 points in the second half and 16 in the fourth quarter.

During the finals, Virginia folded, leaving six ABA teams. Four of them — the Nets, Pacers, Spurs and Nuggets — were accepted into the NBA.

The Nets fortified themselves for the new challenge with the acquisition of point guard Tiny Archibald, who a few years earlier had led the NBA in both scoring and assists. But just days before the season opener, with owner Roy Boe facing huge costs due to the NBA and the Knicks, the Nets sold Erving to Philadelphia.

“We had a team that as it was structured then if it had gone to the NBA, we were a competitive team,” said Turetzky. “We could have fought for a championship with the Celtics and the other people. Until we traded Doc.”

Archibald was limited to 34 games with an ankle injury, Williamson was traded to Indiana, and the Nets finished 22-60 in their first NBA season, which was also their last on Long Island.

On their way to New Jersey’s Rutgers Athletic Center, the Nets grabbed Bernard King in the first round of the 1977 NBA Draft. The only Hall of Famer drafted by the franchise was the Nets’ first NBA draft pick.

King averaged 24.2 points as a rookie and 21.6 the following year before being traded to Utah. Williamson was reacquired and averaged 29.5 points in 33 games in 1977-78. But the Nets did not crack .500 in their first three NBA seasons. Midway through the 1979-80 season, Williamson, the last link to the ABA championship team who averaged 17.8 points in his Nets career over parts of seven seasons, was traded away.

the-1970s-dr-j-and-dynasty-days

The 1970s: Dr. J and Dynasty Days

The first season in Nets franchise history started with Yogi Berra tossing up a red, white and blue ball at an old armory in New Jersey and ended with a forfeit on Long Island.

Yogi and the basketball were part of the plan. The Teaneck Armory, the forfeited game and a lot of other things that happened in between? Not so much.

The 1967-68 season tipped off a nine-year journey in the ABA before the franchise became one of four teams accepted into the NBA. Over the final few years of the ABA, the New York Nets became one of the league’s most stable franchises, a signature team led by Julius Erving.

But in the first few years in the 1960s, the franchise had the same shifting foundation and uncertain future as the rest of the teams in the upstart league. Over its first three seasons, the franchise had two owners, three home courts and 50 different players.

The story starts with the home court they never got to play on. Trucking magnate Arthur J. Brown was running an AAU team called the ABC Freighters when the ABA launched. Brown took the New York franchise in the new league, and hired his ABC Freighters coach, former St. John’s and NBA star Max Zaslofsky, as coach. But when a plan to play at Manhattan’s 69th Regiment Armory fell through, Brown had to take his team — now the New Jersey Americans — to play at the Teaneck Armory.

The inaugural season tipped off on Oct. 23, 1967, with a 110-107 loss to the Pittsburgh Pipers. The roster included former St. John’s stars Tony Jackson and Bob McIntyre and Rutgers’ Bobby Lloyd. Dan Anderson, out of tiny Augsburg College, scored 41 points in the first game. There was also Art Heyman, a former college player of the year at Duke who had lasted a few seasons in the NBA. Levern “Jelly” Tart was a fan favorite who was acquired at midseason and played parts of the first four seasons with the Nets.

“The ABA really started with mostly Eastern League players,” said Herb Turetzky, who has been the team’s official scorer for 50 years, since that very first game. “They were second-chance guys who were thrilled to get a chance to play. They were playing in the Eastern League, $50, $100 a game. Now if they were lucky they might get twice that … if the checks would clear. But they had a chance to play.”

Jackson was the team’s leading scorer in the first season, averaging 19.4 points per game. A two-time All-American at St. John’s out of Brooklyn’s Thomas Jefferson HS, Jackson’s association with early-60s gambling scandals had kept him out of the NBA, much like ABA stars Connie Hawkins and Roger Brown.

“He could shoot it from as deep as you could do it,” said Turetzky. “His release on his jump shot, he was off the ground about three feet before he let it go. And squared to the basket every time. He wasn’t much of a driver to the basket; he didn’t like getting hit. But Tony could shoot the ball. I’ve seen very few. Ray Allen, and now Steph Curry. Beyond that I’ve never seen anyone who was as good a jump shooter.”

Over that first season, players raced each other to the showers before the hot water ran out, Lloyd and Zaslofsky fought after a game, Turetzky found himself in a mini-controversy when he accidentally shorted the Minnesota Muskies a point that Zaslofsky told him not to correct when he discovered his error, and Heyman once casually paused during a game to flip off spectator Joe Namath, his partner in the Manhattan bar Bachelors III who had come by to heckle him during the game.

“The stands were basically empty,” said Turetzky. “If we got 500 to 1,000 people each night, it was a good crowd. They were sitting on movable chairs and the bleachers they just put up for each game.”

At the end, the Americans finished 36-42 and tied with the Kentucky Colonels for the fourth and final playoff spot. A tie-breaker game was required, but the Teaneck Armory was booked. Brown set up the game at Long Island’s Commack Arena, but upon arrival the court was unplayable, with holes in the floor. Commissioner George Mikan declared the game a forfeit for Kentucky, and the inaugural season concluded.

Naturally, the team moved to Long Island the following season and made Commack Arena its home court. In the process, Brown changed the team’s name to Nets, rhyming with the Mets and Jets that called Queens’ Shea Stadium home. The Nets cycled through 27 players while finishing 17-61.

Before the 1969-70 season, the Nets acquired point guard Bill Melchionni, who had played for the Philadelphia 76ers 1967 NBA championship team. More significantly, Brown sold the team to Roy Boe, who would own the Nets for the rest of their ABA tenure. Boe moved the team to Island Garden and planned to hire St. John’s Lou Carnesecca as coach. Carnesecca wanted to wait a year, however, so York Larese coached the team to a 39-45 record and its first ABA playoff appearance, a first-round loss to Kentucky.