Last night the NBA Nets ended their 35 year stay in New Jersey with a loss to the 76ers in Newark.
Starting next year the long-suffering franchise will be playing down the street from my apartment in Fort Greene and hopes are high for the team to regain the glory from the two final appearance in 2002 and 2003. The state’s governor wasn’t sad to see them go.
“They want to leave here and go to Brooklyn? Good riddance.” A little harsh from the fat boy, but I’m in agreement.
The Nets are not loved by anyone.
In fact I’ve never met a Nets fan.
Back in the 90s the team was one of the worst in the NBA. A dealer on the corner of East 10th Street and 1st Avenue had season tickets thanks to a sinse-buying banker. One night Franklin called me over and said, “I’m going upstate for a year.”
“Sorry to hear that.” Franklin watched my motorcycle while I was in the Orient.
“I might get out in six months.” He had been convicted for sale of marijuana.
“I hope so.” Franklin was neighborhood unlike many of the new dealers working the spot.
“But I want you to have these.” Franklin pulled out a stack of tickets. “Season seats to the Nets in the Meadowland.”
“I can’t.” It was more like I didn’t want to go there.
“Don’t be stupid. You can go see the best teams, even have two games with your Celtics.”
“Really?” I was a diehard Boston fan and played basketball every day down at Tompkins Square Park. The tickets might come in handy and I thanked Franklin for the offer.
“Enjoy.”
Two days later I invited Roberto Sharpe to see the Knicks and Nets. We caught a bus from Port Authority to the Meadowlands and walked into the stadium. It was a first for both of us. The seat were good and the beer was cheap, but the arena was quiet. Half the seats were empty and the braindead fans sat as if they had been lobotomized at the entrance. Roberto and I wondered, if they might be zombies, then again the team was shit and no one gets excited about a shit team.
The Nets stayed shit for many years, because of bad luck and bad management.
The team was an original member of the ABA, winning two championships with Julius Irving, whom they had to trade away in 1975 to pay their later entry into the NBA’s New York area.
Their next shot at victory came in the 1983–84 season with Darryl Dawkins, Buck Williams, Otis Birdsong, and Micheal Ray Richardson, but the team imploded with Michael Ray’s failure to pass a drug test for cocaine use. It was all downhill until the Jason Kidd years culminated in two shots for the title.
And now it’s all over.
See yah, New Jersey. Love yah, wouldn’t want to be yah.